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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

Excellent use case.

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!

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

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.

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

in the future:

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

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

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

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.

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)