Open Social for the Common Good

How Government Agencies Can Embrace the Fediverse for Public Communications

In recent years, there has been a significant shift in how government agencies communicate with the public. Social media has become an indispensable tool for agencies to disseminate emergency information, public health alerts, engage with citizens, and provide services. Among the various platforms available, the Fediverse and its most popular component, Mastodon, have emerged as potential alternatives to mainstream social media networks.

According to Pew Research Center, half of all American adults regularly get their news from social media, with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and X being the most used sources. The Reuters Institute finds that 30% of respondents say social media is their main source of news, while use of direct access to news sources has declined from 32% in 2018 to 22% in 2023.

Algorithmic news selection and recommendation engines further complicates the deliverability of important messaging: 48% of respondents worry about missing out on important information due to over-personalised news feeds. Not to mention, placing important safety messages in a social media news feed co-mingles it with a broad range of untrusted news and opinion, competing with disinformation and misinformation across each of the network platforms.

How is the Fediverse Different?

Traditional social media has grown into distinct services that require users to be on the very same service using the very same provider to exchange messages such that, for example, Facebook users cannot communicate with X (formerly Twitter) users directly.

An emergency alert would need to be posted to Facebook and X separately by an agency seeking to reach both audiences. This is because most traditional social media services do not use an accepted technology standard, instead creating “walled gardens” that do not allow the sharing of information outside their walls.

Contrast this with email where users can send to and receive from anyone using an email service. Gmail users can send and receive messages to Outlook users, because email is an accepted technology standard and freely interconnects.

The Fediverse offers this open model like email, but in social media networks. It is a collection of interconnected services that publish social media feeds operated by companies, nonprofits, governments, media organisations and communities, just like traditional social media. But, unlike traditional social media, it uses open technology standards. When a message is posted by one of these providers it is broadcast to the entire network of connected services, and delivered by each service to the relevant audience.

Similar to email, agency alerts are delivered by the agency itself, federating out to the broader network and directly into the inboxes of people who have requested to follow the specific feed. Thanks to the use of technology standards, this removes the walls between networks.

People familiar with the RSS publishing format may find it helpful to think of Fediverse as “Really Simple Social Syndication”. Similar to RSS an agency can publish subscribable feeds, but with the added bonus of social interaction with citizens and stakeholders.

In effect, this combines the deliverability and reach of email with the personalisation and device-alerting capabilities of social media apps.

Mastodon stands out as one of the most popular platforms in the Fediverse, functioning similarly to X but with a focus on privacy and individual controls. Other platforms include WordPress (Web sites and blogging), Pixelfed (photo sharing), and PeerTube (an alternative to Youtube).

All these platforms use the standard Web technology “ActivityPub”, a publishing standard that allows all of these services and content creators to interconnect and interoperate, delivering messages and images and videos to each other.

This then forms the “Fediverse”, a federated universe of standards-based messaging. Just as an agency Web site can be viewed on any browser from any location by any constituent, agency messages published on the Fediverse can be found and followed by any user on any connected platform.

Benefits of Using Mastodon

Mastodon and other Fediverse platforms allow agencies to operate their own servers, giving them complete control over their content and moderation policies. This autonomy can be crucial for maintaining the integrity and appropriateness of government communications.

Deliverability is not subject to third-party rate limits or external content moderation. Examples of the National Weather Service and New York City’s Transit Agency encountering problems with X highlight the precarious nature of relying on a for-profit media corporation to deliver vital public messaging.

The European Commission, the city of Amsterdam, and the nations of Germany, France, The Netherlands and Switzerland each operate their own ActivityPub service, most using Mastodon. US Members of Congress have created Fediverse accounts, as well as large numbers of academic communities and institutions. Even media companies like the BBC and Medium operate their own federated services.

Mainstream social media platforms are often criticised for algorithms that can amplify sensational and unsavory content. The Fediverse’s general lack of such algorithms reduces the risk of misinformation and platform manipulation, providing a more straightforward and reliable channel for government alerts and services. The predominant model is a chronological feed of content, searchable by keyword and hashtag.

By not relying solely on mainstream social media platforms, agencies can avoid the potential pitfalls of corporate policies and biases, ensuring a more neutral and independent stance in their communications.

Lastly, the Fediverse is known for its inclusive community standards and customisable accessibility features. This inclusivity can help agencies reach and engage with a more diverse audience.

Disadvantages

One of the significant drawbacks of using Mastodon and the Fediverse is the relatively smaller user base (15 million members) compared to established platforms. This limited reach can hinder the effectiveness of communication efforts today. However, it is important to note that 2024 will likely see the onboarding of Meta’s Threads platform (160 million users) and Tumblr (210 million users). As more and more networks begin to interoperate with the Fediverse, more and more audiences will be able to find and follow an individual agency social media feed, across all those platforms.

The decentralised and varied nature of the Fediverse can be complex for users unfamiliar with its workings. Government agencies might face challenges in training staff and educating the public about using these platforms effectively. Running a Mastodon service requires technical expertise and resources. Government agencies would need to allocate funds and personnel for server maintenance, moderation, and support, which could be more demanding than using a mainstream platform. This can be countered by creating an account on an existing Fediverse service, or following the German and French models, where a central agency operates the service and onboards individual agencies and bureaus independently.

The Fediverse’s decentralised structure can lead to fragmentation, where users are spread across different communities with varying levels of interaction between them. This fragmentation can make it challenging to disseminate information broadly and uniformly. A staggered approach might mean creating an account on an existing, well-connected service, then bringing the social graph – the followers – to an agency-created service at a later date.

Pathways to Adoption

Similar to how agencies create accounts on commercial platforms today, agencies could create an account on an existing service provider, choosing from a general service like mastodon.social, a topic-focused provider such as sciences.social, or a regional service like masto.nyc. All these servers are interconnected, agencies do not need to create accounts on multiple providers. The agency profile would then be something like “@agencyname@mastodon.social” (the Fediverse uses two @ signs).

A quick way to set up a more prominent presence in the Fediverse is to make use of a managed service from a reputable provider like Masto Host or Toot.io and choose a domain name like agencyname.social. This service would be restricted to agency staff, meaning all messages coming from that service would be agency specific. In this example, the profile could be “@alerts@agency.social”.

The last and perhaps most challenging method is to operate a service directly, similar to the governments and agencies listed above. While use of a .gov domain can be a non-trivial request to approve, publishing from an official account on a government domain adds trustworthiness and verification of the message’s source. An address along the lines of social.agency.gov would need to be requisitioned from the relevant agency OCIO or in some cases, the Chief Data Officer. In this example, the ActivityPub profile would be “@alerts@social.agency.gov”.

Each of these options offer the same overall benefit. Just as podcasts are freely available on any and all podcast feed, as we transition to interoperable networks we’ll soon be hearing the call to “follow us wherever you get your social”.

No matter which pathway is chosen, your feed is freely findable and followable from any of the interconnected platforms.

Publishing Workflow

Numerous social media management platforms like Buffer and Fedica support cross-posting to Mastodon. This could be used to mirror content already being posted to agency accounts on X or similar feeds. Chances are the social media team can easily add a Mastodon channel to their existing workflow.

Onboarding and integration advice is freely available from IFTAS, a nonprofit trust and safety organisation focused on supporting a safe and civil Fediverse. Traditional public affairs services are available from agencies like Dewey Square Group and other PR and social media consultants.

In summary, the use of the Fediverse and Mastodon by government agencies offers a new paradigm in public sector communication, marked by increased security, autonomy, and inclusivity. However, it also brings challenges in terms of reach and complexity. As the digital landscape evolves, it is crucial for government agencies to stay informed and agile, adapting their communication strategies to serve the public effectively and responsibly. The decision to use platforms like Mastodon should be a considered one, aligned with the broader goals of transparency, engagement, and public service.

If you’d like to learn more about how operating an ActivityPub service could benefit your public messaging, contact IFTAS for a free consultation.

Talking Points

Agency staff that wish to advocate for using the Open Social Web to take better control of social media messaging can use the following high level talking points to begin the conversation.

1. ActivityPub is the accepted global Web standard for open social networking. It is published by the World Wide Web Consortium, the non-profit body that oversees Web standards.
2. The Fediverse is the real world collection of platforms, apps, and services that implement ActivityPub. They constitute a “federated universe” of interconnected social networks and can freely communicate with one another.
3. The Fediverse is considered to be the “next big thing” in social media. See The Verge, the EFF, Fortune, Mark Zuckerberg, and Matt Mullenweg. Usage has roughly tripled over the past year, and as larger platforms begin adopting we can expect a tenfold increase in adoption in 2024.
   So why should a public agency care?
4. Autonomy. Government agencies should not be reliant on advertising-driven media companies to broadcast vital public messaging. You wouldn’t let any of these companies restrict access to your public Web site. Why let them restrict who can or who should see your public messages?
5. Alignment. Support a person-centric, privacy-focused social network environment grounded in diversity and inclusivity. In many ways it is being built to counter the harms of for-profit social media.

#ActivityPub #Fediverse #Government #Mastodon #SocialMedia