this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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Europe

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The account is in fact authentic:

Die für die digitale Unabhängigkeit der EU zuständige Vizepräsidentin, Henna Virkkunen, eröffnete dort erst am Abend erstmals ein offizielles Benutzerkonto, wie die EU-Kommission der dpa mitteilte.

The vice president responsible for digital independence of the EU, Henna Virkkunen, opened an official account there [on Mastodon] for the first time yesterday evening, the EU commission told dpa [German Press Agency].

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[–] NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org 17 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (2 children)

Very nice.

It would be even nicer if as many government agencies as possible ran their own Mastodon and Lemmy instances and automatically created accounts for everyone involved in external communications when they took office.

[–] Dojan@pawb.social 10 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It looks to me like the European Commission already has a Mastodon instance, and so I question why her account isn't on there rather than on mastodon.social?

[–] Quantillion@mstdn.io 1 points 16 hours ago

@Dojan @NotAnonymousAtAll
Thanks, I've been looking for this!!

[–] abbadon420@sh.itjust.works 11 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Lemmy is unrealistic and illogical,but mastodon should be the new normal. Every agency is on twitter now, which is ridiculous.

[–] NotAnonymousAtAll@feddit.org 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I fully agree with unrealistic, but would love an explanation for illogical.

[–] Maifeierlander@slrpnk.net 2 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Lemmy being dominated by self proclaimed communists makes it something they'd avoid.

[–] plyth@feddit.org 3 points 9 hours ago

The point of the Fediverse is that it can be used irregardless of what some instances do.

The developers are communists, but by using lemmy.world, there is no interaction with them and they don't influence the timeline. Additionally, it's possible to use the network without using their software at all: Piefed.

The communists proof that Lemmy is a safe choice to grow Europe's independence from American social networks.

[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub 8 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Nah, it's just the three Lemmy instances of endless horror. Regarding making Fediverse more popular, our most important thing is to make sure that people understand to ignore anything that comes from that holy trinity of limitless stalinist madness :)

[–] Maifeierlander@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 hours ago

The problem here is if EU's governments see the developers being communists as problematic, despite the fact that you're correct.

[–] Tuuktuuk@piefed.europe.pub 8 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Hey! Thanks a lot for this info!

Her Finnish party, Kokoomus, is basically the same thing in Finland as CDU is in Germany. Never thought I'd follow someone from that party on something like Mastodon. But fine, that's an important post they're holding, and that's something to respect! Deffo want to see what they've got to say!

Very happy that there's meaningful EU social media precence outside the "all is about profit" part of the social media. It means we on this continent do have hope!