I hope other governments, small and large, start doing this.

They've done a lot of stupid things lately, but this isn't one of them.

Governments should be using open platforms and open source software.

This is great. This is how it always should have been.

Organization of any kind needs a Twitter page or subreddit? No, they need their own official, self-controlled Mastodon instance anyone can see and listen to and interact with, even without accounts on that specific instance. They need their own kbin or Lemmy instance to make and administer their community on and have control over, everyone can still participate even without signing up for accounts on that specific instance.

That's actually hilarious because the coalition of ruling parties of the Netherlands was so unstable that it fell apart today.

This is great.

I really wish more news sites set up their own instances. At the start I realize they wouldn’t be getting as many eyeballs, but it seems to make a lot of sense to have a @news@cnn.social or something. Then Wolf could have @Wolf.Blitzer@cnn.social.

Instant “verification” that way, too.

But we’ll see.

Its super important that Government info NOT be hidden behind paywalls, forced log-ins or even CloudFlare puzzles. People need to be able to freely click through to the official information.

Excellent use case.

Imagine a world where every government has its own instance.

"Breaking News: North Korea has defederated from the United States, as well as hundreds of other countries."

This actually makes a lot of sense and I am surprised that there isn't a lot of government already doing it. That and celebrities. It's basically instant verification.

Not many governments would have enough tech-savy people to even think of opening a Mastadon instance. Kudos NL and Germany!

This is the way. Government, Businesses, Celebrities and News organizations should be hosting their own social media presence. They shouldn’t be beholden to corporate interests to regulate their communications. This also breaks the cycle of exclusive content that causes lock-in. Wins for everyone.

This is really fascinating to me. It would be interesting to see each country set up their own Mastodon/Lemmy/Kbin/other federated systems and have those instances constantly talk to each other. Like others have commented, It seems like a great way to keep the communication style and interaction of twitter/facebook, while also protecting the validity of the information through private instances. Really smart decision.

in the future:

"Ireland.ir and Scot.land has defederated from the England.UK.gov. The Prime minister will be addressing his Instance shortly"

The fact that a state government used a commercial service to inform the public is absurd, and this was bound to happen eventually.

Exciting to see this happening. More governments should do this.

Incredible! Are they the first government entity to do so?

Didn't the EU do the same shortly after Space Karen bought Twitter? I believe I saw an article around the time I started my Mastodon account.

Working link: https://social.overheid.nl/@beheerder/110684642686045200

"This instance has been technically up and running since Friday, July 7, but not yet officially in use. Please be patient

The instance will contain the accounts of government agencies and will not currently accommodate individual officials."

translated by google translate.

Probably a poor decision to be creating accounts on government operated instances. Since they own the server, they're in a position to:

1. Siphon credentials and attempt reuse to gain access to distinct services
2. Ban individual accounts
3. Censor based on post content

I'm all for government support and adoption of open-source software so long as they're not in the position to disrupt how it's used by the public at large.

Edit (my perspective is relevant, but doesn't apply in this case): My nerd impulses outran my willingness to read the link's content. Seems it's not for public registration.

Edit 2: Like my cornbread eating American ass can read Dutch anyway 🤣

Good, other governments should be doing this. (But even if they use threads instead, mastodon users’ll see their updates anyway if mastodon feds with it)

All governments, large NGOs, and news orgs should do this. Maybe there should be a "mastodon in a box" which is a simplified containerized version of the service which makes it easy to set up and secure.

Lol that’s awesome! I didn’t think governments would start doing that so quickly.