A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the notion that governments can do more to secure their own online voices by owning and operating their own Fediverse instances (Mastodon, as an example).
I am by no means the only blogger to propose that this is a good way to avoid being locked-in or censored by commercial “Big Tech” or other interests. It turns out that George Peretz had posted something along the same lines as me only a few days earlier (How the Labour Government, and others, should respond to Musk); I was unaware of that post until I ran into it via Seize The Means Of Communication!1 on the Lightly Seared blog much more recently.
Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz went on to cover my post on their For Immediate Release podcast, and in particular Neville asked for me to share more about what I know in relation to existing government or state owned-and-operated Mastodon instances. I’m happy to do so!
Proof of value
One of the more visible examples of governments embracing the Fediverse is case of the European Union. Initially running EU Voice (Mastodon) and EU Video (PeerTube) as pilots, these were evaluated for 2 years, and then closed in May. However, this year the European Commission formally joined the Fediverse with a Mastodon instance (supported by Mastodon gGmbH).
Beyond that, but still in the European continent: France, Germany and the Netherlands (more on the Dutch instance via the excellent Fediverse Report) have prominent presences in the Fediverse.
The government of #France 🇫🇷 now has an official Fediverse server 🥳(All accounts in French unless otherwise noted)
➡️ @cnes – France's space agency
➡️ @ambnum – French ambassador for digital affairs (in English)
➡️ @sup_recherche – Ministry of Higher Education & Research
➡️ @astroIAP – Astrophysics Institute of Paris
➡️ @cnrs – CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research
➡️ @umrGeoazur – Geology/geophysics research unit for Côte d'Azur Univ, CNRS, Côte d'Azur Observatory
🧵 1/4
— FediFollows 🎅 (@FediFollows) 2024-02-05T14:20:03.369Z
Hallo Fediverse 🙂
Für die vielen neuen Menschen hier gibt es nochmal ein paar aktualisierte Informationen von uns, die wir anheften können:
1. Eine Übersicht über alle Accounts unserer Instanz gibt es unter: social.bund.de/directory (Filtereinstellungen nicht vergessen)
2. Pixis gibt es kostenlos hier: bfdi.bund.de/DE/Service/Publik…
3. Merch verlosen wir immer mal wieder hier oder verteilen es auf Veranstaltungen.
/ ÖA
— BfDI (@bfdi) 2022-12-19T10:30:54.149Z
In addition, the Swiss Government launched an instance in September 2023 as a pilot which was due to last for one year; I’ll be curious to watch how that is evaluated.
Taking a step beyond central government, I’ve read that various federal states in Germany have their own instances.
There are also good reasons for broadcasters to run their own Fediverse instances (the BBC has had a pilot here, for example); universities and academics; and more.
I’m curious to learn of more of these, let me know in the comments if you are aware of others.
If you are interested in managed support for this kind of instance, the team at Mastodon gGmbH would be happy to hear from you to discuss how we can help.
A case for Brazil
Finally, I want to talk briefly (but, only because I must) about X.
We talked about the events of the end of last week, when Brazil’s courts chose to block access to X in that country, on episode 3.19 of the TechGrumps podcast that was recorded this weekend, and should be released any moment.
Along with Musk’s direct personal attacks on the UK Prime Minister and his efforts to spread dangerous misinformation, this is yet another example of Musk, specifically, demonstrating his untrustworthiness, and lack of willingness to be bound by the rule of law – national or international. According to the media, there has been a swift take-up of Bluesky by many Brazilian users; it is difficult to measure Mastodon or other Fediverse instance signups because there are many individual instances that comprise the network, but we know that there was a significant surge of interest at the end of last week.
A lot of people who are up in arms over Brazil banning Xitter aren’t acknowledging the fact that the country cast off a military dictatorship in 1985 and Elon’s openly allied with the neofascist who tried to restore it, with help from Elon Social, just two years ago. Pretty unique situation.That judge may well have a beef with Musk because of his intransigence but the stakes are much higher than that.
#elonmusk #brazil #twitter #bolsonaro #fascism
— Joshua Holland (@JoshuaHolland) 2024-09-01T13:08:57.793Z
Whichever directions users migrate, the important thing is that more people must leave X as a platform, and disempower Musk’s efforts to disrupt the law.
As I typed this blog entry, my friend Evan Prodromou posted
So, who is in the Free/Open Source software community in Brazil, advising the government on how to move to the Fediverse? And how can I help you? — Evan Prodromou (@evan) 2024-09-02T15:43:26.988Z
I don’t speak Portuguese, but add my name and voice to this offer of support!
@evan I am somehow surprised that the actual Brazilian government still doesn't have an instance of some software compatible with activity pub.Before leaving Brazil, I was part of a group engaged in open government data and civic hacking. I really hope these groups are still strong as they were a few years ago!
By the way, in 2011, I was advocating the City Council of São Paulo to have an identi.ca server, instead of Twitter. This didn't work, but at least I could open up some government data.
Post in Portuguese social.vivaldi.net/@everton137…
#activitypub #OpenSource #softwarelivre #Brasil #opendata
— everton137 (@everton137) 2024-09-02T15:53:31.668Z
- … a title which is delightfully reminiscent of Cory Doctorow’s book The Internet Con, subtitled How To Seize The Means Of Computation, which I think about a lot. And obviously, as an historian, I’m very aware of the original quotation from which both of these derive. ↩︎
Share this post from your fediverse server
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andypiper.co.uk/2024/09/02/fed…
#100DaysToOffload #brazil #communications #europe #europeanCommission #europeanUnion #federal #fediverse #german #government #legal #netherlands #socialMedia #switzerland #Technology
The Internet Con by Cory Doctorow, 2023, Verso Books edition, in English
Open Library
Seize The Means of Communication!
George Peretz makes a very sensible suggestion as to how the Labour Government, and others, should respond to Musk:
[T]here is an obvious thing that government could do now and that requires no legislation and costs no money: government could simply shift all the material it currently puts out on X to another platform or platforms
He goes on to mention both BlueSky and Mastodon as obvious contenders.
I certainly agree that governments — and any organisation that values its reputation, for that matter — should be moving away from X, but simply moving to another platform amounts to a sticking-plaster solution at best.
The problem with being on someone else’s platform is that you are giving that someone else control over which messages you see and which of your messages are seen. Indeed, the EU’s Digital Services Act recognises this by identifying Very Large Online Platforms, and imposing additional requirements on them around areas such as transparency and disinformation.
Federated technologies, such as Mastodon (and many others exist) resolve the problem of ownership far more effectively by allowing you install and run your own instance. Many governments — and even the European Commission — already use these solutions, thus putting themselves in control of their own communication and ensuring that individuals can access these communications without putting themselves at the mercy of commercial priorities.
Obviously, there are both costs and challenges associated with running your own instance, but none of these are insurmountable and if organisations truly want to ensure that their communications remain free (as in speech) they really should be investing in the already existing infrastructure that allows them to do so.
Any organisation should be taking steps to protect the integrity of it’s communication. This is especially true in the case of governments, political parties and campaigners, for whom free and open discussions are essential.
#fediverse
Elon Musk's use of his X platform to promote murderous voices of hate is unacceptable. One way of fighting back would be to try to break the co-ordination problem that underpins X's power.
George Peretz KC (The Political Lawyer)
