The Dutch government has officially launched their own Mastodon server. In an accompanying letter, the State Secretary explains how this relates to the government strategy of supporting digital common goods.
This seems like an excellent use of federated services. Now their citizens have a single source for government updates that they know is valid and the government can ensure that everything follows whatever data laws they pass.
Now we just need more to follow.
The RSS and API support for Mastodon are top notch and perfect for information dissemination
At least in Norway it was recently a huge scandal when tweets went private, as several public organs communicate through Twitter and suddenly over night this wasn’t available to people.
I think there are a lot more countries than the Netherlands currently looking into this.
The Nordic Council of Ministers set up a Think Tank for digital strategy stuff last year, and they published their recommendations two months ago. They specifically advised all the Nordic governments to go all in on ActivityPub.
https://social.cloudless.world/@ruben_int/statuses/01GYC9A95YPKQZZJXH8VT27JRA
https://pub.norden.org/nord2023-004/3-access-to-diverse-and-credible-digital-platforms-and-communities.htmlIt would be amazing if the reason it is taking so long is that they are working on a tailor made activitypub service specifically for public information announcements. One can dream.
Digital sovereignity is a big deal!
I wouldn’t mind if my country did the same. It’ll be like having our own social media site aimed to our country.
As a Dutch person, I freaking love this. And there’s plenty of valid reasons for it too, it’s not just them throwing us a bone.
A good decision.