The server is now live and in use at social.overheid.nl
The official announcement post by the State Secretary of Digitalisation: https://social.overheid.nl/@avhuffelen/110700825255524685
In the post she mentions that the government supports ‘value-driven’ alternatives to social media. In a letter to the house of representatives she describes Mastodon as a Digital Common Good, and that it fits in the larger strategy of the government of using ‘open source, unless’ (meaning theyll always use open source unless there is a clear explicit reason not to).
Really wish all governments would do this.
Knowing how the US operates, we’ll go down that path here in about 100 years, when children that are growing up with this and have fully aged into seniority in all the branches.
I could see the US Digital Service doing this. They’re pretty solid.
https://www.usds.gov/
Interesting, never heard of that group, surprised they survived the Trump years, given that Obama was the one that created the unit.
Slightly related, I remember sitting in on a recruitment seminar for the CIA some years back when they came to our design school and gave a talk about the graphic designers that prepare Intelligence Reports for the President. Interesting talk, but they had absolutely no sense of humor (as I guess anybody would expect). Other than background checks and all that for a government position, I was surprised at how relatively easy it seemed for an entry-level graphic designer to get that close to interacting with the Presidency and classified secrets. However, given the demands of the job, I’m sure it burns people out pretty quickly. This USDS group though sounds like it might be slightly less stressful, though still an important position for designers to get into.
Mastodon is perfect for this type of thing as well. They have full control over the instance. They can restrict sign-ups so that official accounts are easily verifiable. It’s a terrific idea.
This is the kind of thing that could help Mastodon really take off. The only reason most people still look at Twitter is for updates from official sources.
Same.
It depends if you trust in your government.