@stefano@bsd.cafe they are not “neutral country” anymore

@stefano@bsd.cafe Until now, I even didn't know that they were here. This could be a hint for so many: They don't link to their Mastodon accounts, they don't make enough promotion where to find them. How would users follow them?

@stefano@bsd.cafe I couldn't agree more. Twitter is a private company, I'd understand if it was the only option but it's clearly not and encouraging people to use a privately owned platform, especially a foreign extra communitarian one is wrong on so many levels I can't even start to describe why. I'll just say the Brits got manipulated and screwed with the whole Brexit mess after Cambridge Analytica leveraged Facebook data and ads to skew the public vote. Who should the Brits go cry to, now?

@stefano@bsd.cafe Beautifully said! Also agree with your stance in this.

Things take time... they will come back to the Fediverse.

@stefano@bsd.cafe The cost isn't 0, as the risk is potentially unbounded.

Imagine if somebody hacks into the VPS, waits for a Twitter outage, and posts a message from a top government official that Zurich is under imminent nuclear attack from Russia, then conveniently forwards the link to that official government instance to all the media.

@stefano@bsd.cafe
I find it indecent that such social networks, in some cases, become the official communication channels of local government bodies. While a balance is due for a trade-off between efforts and results, not having an indie website for every org is not understandable (and the global cost could be virtually zero with accurate planning).

@stefano@bsd.cafe i will send an email to the responsible person urs.bruderer@bk.admin.ch and tell they should think again.

@stefano@bsd.cafe I think the cost for governments to offer some online public space is way too low to be unable to afford it. Either in funds or time.

While a VPS to run a server for their instance isn’t expensive by any means, I wonder what the price of having someone operate it is inflating the actual costs. Is it possible that they’re contracting out the development work and are being overcharged, leading to their view that it’s not worth the outreach they’re getting?

I agree that providing whatever forms of communication possible is the best way to go. But the decision might not be as cut and dry as it looks on the surface. Or maybe it’s laziness? Who knows.

@stefano@bsd.cafe I'm curious - does anyone know if they had enabled the bridges to BlueSky and/or Threads? Seems like that would have been an easy way to get more followers/engagement...

@stefano@bsd.cafe The Italians, lasciamo perdere questi Italians...

@stefano@bsd.cafe
ma infatti mi sembra una decisione decisamente errata...

But indeed it seems to me a definitly wrong decision...

@stefano@bsd.cafe
"I think a government shouldn’t be overly concerned about follower counts and interactions, but rather about providing free, autonomous communication that is independent of third-party companies."

Agreed!

Plus if they post on X then anyone who does not have an X account cannot see threads/replies, only the first post.

And even then it's kind of wonky! Sometimes when I look at an X profile (not logged in since I have no account) I see old posts and not the latest ones.