Mastodawn

Dave Moskovitz (((❤️)))Mar 19, 2023

@paulhellyer @donkey Thanks Paul, that's really useful!

https://social.growyourown.services/@FediFollows/110050538751364594

Paul H

Mar 19, 2023

@davemosk @donkey The EU is leading the way here. So it can be done. See:

FediFollows (@[email protected])

#EuropeanUnion picks of the day (Part 1): ➡️ @[email protected] - EU executive, appointed by elected national governments ➡️ @[email protected] - Handles EU Commission's relationship with libre software community ➡️ @[email protected] - Helping fund FOSS incl. Fedi projects like Mastodon, PeerTube etc. ➡️ @[email protected] (main) & @[email protected] (videos) - Co-ordinates EU space services incl. Galileo sat nav, Copernicus climate sats, asteroid monitoring etc. ➡️ @[email protected] - Tries to ensure EU institutions respect privacy & data protection

social.growyourown.services

dryad Mar 19, 2023

@davemosk Not that I’ve seen nor heard.

Sasha Mar 19, 2023

@davemosk They should host a gov instance. Make the public infrastructure well, public.

🇳🇿Mar 19, 2023

@davemosk a few of us have been working on this, Dave. Watch this space.

@lightweight That sounds promising, Dave. I'm going to be helping out with a discussion paper to MBIE on allowing use of social.govt.nz as a domain for this - can we include your work in that paper? @davemosk

🇳🇿Mar 19, 2023

Nice one @donkey! I'm talking to political parties about a presence on the Fediverse prior to the coming election. @davemosk

@lightweight That would be awesome! And that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m thinking for the social.govt.nz instance - central and local govt agencies, parties, MPs etc - all on an official govt instance - less need to worry about impersonators etc.

🇳🇿Mar 19, 2023

@donkey it's remarkably discouraging that gov't agencies haven't *led* this initiative. Similarly political parties. Shows how disconnected our public service (esp education) and political parties are. It's very concerning & disappointing.

@lightweight Indeed! I’m trying to do it ‘from the inside’ - of local govt at least. Turns out the Govt CISO has also been pushing this from the central govt side.

We shall see. 😊

@donkey @lightweight @davemosk I saw a reference in another reply to you about the German Information Commissioner hosting the instance for German government departments. We should consider Archives NZ hosting the NZ government instance so it ensures compliance with the Public Records Act from the start. Since Archives NZ is a branch within DIA it should be able to draw on their capabilities too. cc @jet

@openpolicynz That’s a really great idea - our discussion paper was going to propose having the instance hosted on #CatalystCloud so it remains within NZ borders. Having it actually looked after/administered by Archives is very cool. I’ll add that to the list of ideas. :) @lightweight @davemosk @jet

@donkey @openpolicynz @lightweight @davemosk interesting! Re the scope of what it is used for, there is a thing in here about being party political or not. There’s no way, for example, a political party can show up on a .govt.nz domain. And I assume individual MPs’ social media accounts are treated as political comms rather than the voice of government, whether that makes sense? On Twitter they had the “authorised by” thing yeah?

@jet Yes, I believe that all that “authorised by” thing in their Twitter bio. I guess if there are some rules around parties/MP’s then it might be best for each party to host their own instance. Very handy info - thank you! @openpolicynz @lightweight @davemosk

@donkey @openpolicynz @lightweight @davemosk yeah I think it would help your case to keep it narrow

@jet Excellent, I agree too. The discussion paper (first baby step) is just getting MBIE approval for the social.govt.nz domain. @openpolicynz @lightweight @davemosk

@donkey @openpolicynz @lightweight @davemosk on Archives’ stake in it, such communications and MP’s papers are not public records. So that’s also a consideration

@donkey @openpolicynz @lightweight @davemosk

Zeborah Mar 20, 2023

@jet If public records isn't an issue, another option might be National Library - they manage the NZ Web Archive: https://natlib.govt.nz/collections/a-z/new-zealand-web-archive/

@zeborah Thanks! Noted that idea too.

https://www.digital.govt.nz/digital-government/strategy/strategy-summary/strategy-for-a-digital-public-service/

Michael U Mar 20, 2023

@donkey @zeborah yeah nice thought, I was thinking about them as well since they certainly harvest of-interest Twitter content and such, and there is a relationship between them and Archives because a govt agency can meet its web archiving requirements by confirming the Library has got it all... but I don't think administering an active service fits their remit.

another bit of DIA is the Digital Public Services branch, who put this out among other things...

Strategy for a Digital Public Service

The Strategy is a call to action for the public service to operate in the digital world in a more modern and efficient way — delivering the outcomes that Aotearoa New Zealand needs.

New Zealand Digital government

Michael U Mar 20, 2023

@donkey @zeborah I jumped around a bit there, all I really needed to say was that I'm sure the Library would happily preserve copies of whatever content and whatever its status, but imo it would be a very new thing if they were to administer an active service.

Zeborah Mar 20, 2023

@jet Sure... though it'd be a new thing for any department to host something like that. NatLib at least have experience running other large (albeit non-social-media) web sites/services/collections. But even if they're not the right people to host/admin, it'd still be worth discussing with them the web archiving side of it and how that'd work ethically in the Mastodon context. (Eg posts *from* govt depts is one thing, but what about replies to others, or boosts?)

@donkey

@jet @donkey @lightweight @davemosk Yes, I’d see a .govt.nz Fediverse instance as being only for public servants and Ministers in an official capacity. Ministers in a party political capacity, and non-minster MPs could be on a Parliamentary instance.

@jet @donkey @lightweight @davemosk However, they’d also need to have pretty tight integration with departments’ records of who is employed by a department, otherwise people could create an account while being employed by a government agency and it would still exist after they left. Would also need to handle people moving to a new job in a different department, so accounts are only temporarily suspended not deleted during such moves.

@openpolicynz @donkey @lightweight @davemosk keep it role based and update the profile fields if needed? It would be quite a change to things now if public servants had a named social media presence. Not commenting on whether that’s good or bad, just saying the norm now is an anonymous department or perhaps function account

@jet @donkey @lightweight @davemosk True - would most likely be agency or function accounts to begin with. I was getting ahead of myself. 😉

@openpolicynz @jet @lightweight @davemosk Yeah - I was thinking along the lines of @[email protected], @[email protected], @[email protected] - that sort of thing. Agency level, on an authoritative domain etc.

@donkey @lightweight @davemosk @jet Yes, I said ‘hosting’ but perhaps should have said ‘administering’, because it could be hosted by Catalyst, but run by Archives NZ.

Stephen Mar 19, 2023

@davemosk I think Carl Klitscher was having a chat to an agency about that? Sorry I can't remember his handle.

Paul H

Mar 19, 2023

@stephen @davemosk Paging, Carl, paging Carl. Carl to reception please. @carl_klitscher

@paulhellyer

Who?, Me?

Thanks Paul :-)

Carl Mar 19, 2023

@davemosk
My first foray into this was to try and claim social.govt.nz a la @donkey and ended up being pointed to DIA as the '.govt.nz' owner... they were ok with the idea but said I needed an agency or formal project to ask for it.
I've just been round the traps again within MoE and had a good chat to our Social Media team who I'm pleased to say had actually done some research along with the SM teams at other agencies but had decided collectively that 'the market' wasn't there and therefore..

@davemosk @donkey
with the limited funding and resources available to them the effort couldn't be justified (MoE has a team of two monitoing the entire SM space).
There were also concerns raised ab out there being no Govt policy on Mastodon as well as general operational aspects etc. all of which came down to resources, funding and capability.
None of these are insurmountable but MoE was a lead in getting TikTok operational across the ministry which other agencies then picked up on BUT...

@davemosk @donkey
took the team over 6 months of effort to get all the approvals...

So we are back to finding an agency that is prepared to lead the effort... there is no question from the Social Media teams that it is not a valid thing to do... but just not by them as individuals.

So, first up, a lead agency. We have MBIE as a start but also DIA... and @Robsonde got in touch about an initiative he was working on at Parliamentary Services...

Then we have a 'policy'... easy enough in my book.

@davemosk @donkey @Robsonde
coz we just copy the Twitter one and do a find&replace... but again, who takes the lead...

Then it got down to the 'how'... we know that Govt. Procurement has a principle of 'better outcomes' for NZ so while any given agency could stand up and instance that would most likely be on AWS/Azure...

So back to some as-a-Service offering with Catalyst Cloud being the obvious choice... they have a Koha library service that a number of agencies use so Mastodon shouldn't

@davemosk @donkey @Robsonde
be a problem... However, they are also a commercial organisation and should they be expected to invest in that *before* any real commitment from Govt. or a lead agency...

The advantage of having Catalyst do it is that they are on the panel and have cleared the first hurdle from a certification perspective... the rest of the security/cert requirements should then just be the extras on top (guided by the yet to be delivered policy doc)...

@davemosk @donkey @Robsonde
Having said that, are we then locking the smaller players like @aurynn out of the game...

So, dead keen and happy to coordinate with the menchies and @openpolicynz on this...

Someone, somewhere *must* have the ear of an agency CEO or CIO with a bit of cash in their pocket that could be extracted for a pilot...

Aurynn Shaw Mar 20, 2023

@carl_klitscher @davemosk @donkey @Robsonde @openpolicynz I would like to not be frozen out, I’ve spent a lot of time and energy on local-cloud tech for running Mastodons

@aurynn @davemosk @donkey @Robsonde @openpolicynz
And if your service was built on catalyst then half the compliance battle has already been won... there would also be a need to plug into the Azure AD space for the agencies and possibly the ESL service for schools/kura... Lots of learnings!!

Aurynn Shaw Mar 20, 2023

@carl_klitscher @davemosk @donkey @Robsonde @openpolicynz is on catalyst

@davemosk @donkey @Robsonde @aurynn @openpolicynz

Also, from an Education perspective not only do we have the Ministry publishing to the Fediverse but each school/kura/learning institute (5000+ of them) would also have access... Anything they do publish could be fed into Twitter etc. (at least until the shut the API down...). More benefits that you could shake a stick at!

@carl_klitscher for what it's worth, the OER Foundation (which employs me) runs https://mastodon.oeru.org, https://social.fossdle.org, and https://social.milll.ws and we're a wholey owned charitable subsidiary of Te Pūkenga... so, strictly speaking, the public service has inherited 3 instances of Mastodon (and we also run a bunch of other Fediverse-enabled apps). @davemosk @donkey @Robsonde @aurynn @openpolicynz

OERu Social - Mastodon

This Mastodon instance is hosted by the OER Foundation. It is a home for open educators and also supports learners involved in the OERu. Accounts of learners not involved in OERu courses may be removed.

Mastodon hosted on mastodon.oeru.org

@lightweight

I will use that in my arguments :-)

@carl_klitscher Should I just set up a Mastodon for them and hand them the keys? @davemosk @donkey @Robsonde

@lightweight @davemosk @donkey @Robsonde

That would end up being a world of hurt... (and they'd lose them for a start!!)

@carl_klitscher heh heh. See, this is why we can't have nice (virtual) things. @davemosk @donkey @Robsonde

@carl_klitscher Interesting - sounds like you’ve been down this track before. Let’s see if we can perhaps hit some different folk along the way or add to the traction you’ve already built. The guy I’m talking with is on the .govt.nz moderator panel and is CE of ALGIM - perhaps *that* could be the lead agency… @davemosk @Robsonde

@donkey @davemosk @Robsonde
Yeah... still all talk and no action on my part though...
My next step as suggested by the SM guru's was to hit up the CIO to see if there was any appetite... unfortunately we are going through a bit of a reshuffle and while change is always an opportunity I suspect their mind will be elsewhere at the mo.

No harm in me digging out the policy docs and updating them in the meantime... or putting together an RFP lite in case some funding fell out of someones pocket...

@carl_klitscher sounds great! Those would be great pockets to have….