Connected PlacesJul 12, 2023

The Dutch government has officially launched their own Mastodon server, State Secretary of Digitalisation @avhuffelen announced today! The server lives on the official domain of the Dutch government, at social.overheid.nl.

The Secretary mentions in her announcement a letter to the government explaining her support for 'value-driven alternative social networks', such as Mastodon. For more information on that, check out
https://fediversereport.com/dutch-government-officially-launches-mastodon-server/

Dutch government officially launches Mastodon server

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.

fediversereport.com
Show threadBrendan JonesJul 12, 2023
@fediversereport @avhuffelen
Love it:
“[…] the fire department send out an emergency text warning to people, urging them to check Twitter for the latest updates. However, this coincided with Twitter preventing people who do not have accounts from viewing tweets, resulting in people not being able to see emergency service updates. The House filed a motion in response, stating that emergency situations, the government should make sure that information is publicly accessible.
Show threadYoraJul 12, 2023
@Brendanjones @fediversereport @avhuffelen This was one of the first things I've been thinking when people said twitter outages could interfere with existing emergency notification systems.
Federated mastodon servers are exactly the solution to this problem.
Show threadBrendan Jones
@Yora @fediversereport @avhuffelen even unfederated servers are the answer! As long as I, as a citizen, am able to always access that server’s posts if I need to, because the government hosts the server itself. If I understand correctly I could still grab the RSS feed of an unfederated server.
Jul 12, 2023 at 5:28pmWeb
Show threadYoraJul 12, 2023
@Brendanjones @fediversereport @avhuffelen But I don't think a lot of people would make a second account specifically for public notifications.
It's much more appealing if you access them with software and accounts you're already using anyway.
Show threadDee ToherJul 12, 2023

@Brendanjones @Yora @fediversereport @avhuffelen

Plus they can embed the RSS feed onto their websites - making it easier to update information that can be seen on the website.