Doesn't "POTUS is using threads for social media" feel a bit like "POTUS is using outlook.com for email"?
Is there anything about the bureaucracy that stops their some small team to setup a Mastodon server on "social.whitehouse.gov" and make this a reality? I find it hard to believe that this would be "if it got hacked it could create diplomacy issues", because I don't think that Facebook is setting up any type of special infrastructure to deal with political figures on their platform. Also, none of this seems to be a problem for some of the EU governments.
Maybe I am missing something. If there is someone among you working with the US Goverment or aware of how their digital initiatives work and can shed some light into this?
[edit] And yes, a Presidential candidate owning / operating / profiting from / accepting laundry and bribes on / such a platform is- should be- completely unacceptable.
I think you're missing something. Think about it.
Here is the White House's social media: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/blog/
The US government is in the governing business. They are not a social media company and don't have the desire or resources required to become a social media company and attract the substantial user base they'd need to get people to pay attention.
> Is there anything about the bureaucracy that stops their some small team to setup a Mastodon server on "social.whitehouse.gov" and make this a reality?
I'm sure they've looked at doing that and probably decided that Mastodon is a relatively miniscule player and their efforts were better spent on the existing commercial social media platforms.
And they presumably get Mastodon coverage by hopping on Threads. (if that promise ever came to fruition. I don't know because I don't pay attention to Mastodon anymore, aside from looking at their MAU stats.
Whether it's a government entity, or a large corporation, you're going to have the same issues with procurement:
* Finding software that fulfills requirements on auditing and security requirements.
* Selecting a vendor that fulfills a laundry-list of contractual obligations / legal requirements. They'll need to honor comprehensive Service Level Agreements for government access, and be proactive in patching, deployment, and mitigation.
* Integration with a government-grade Single Sign-On solution like ID.me
* Onboarding resources for agencies and individuals, plus tooling for social media teams
* Setting policies that respect the First Amendment, while also moderating things like hate speech, pornography, etc
The other hurdle for this is funding and staffing to run all of this.
None of this is necessarily impossible, and I think something like this could be really beneficial. But, I don't think the ecosystem of the Fediverse (from a platform or vendor perspective) is necessarily there yet. I'd love to be proven wrong.
By definition a social network tries attract a large user base, controls a feed algorithm, ostensibly has SOME information on its users. Social medias sites typically also need SOME moderation, gov't moderating speech would be a nightmare in the US. And you throw in the weirdness of government being in the loop in our social lives. We also already have precedent on NSA, etc and not completely unfounded paranoia on government tracking its citizens.
So you not only would have the perception of government controlling speech, including worries about whatever administration is in control managing that speech, you have the boogeyman of social media and gov't tracking in one centralized place, gov't "in our private lives", and a million things anathema to American culture.
Mastodon instance, mostly for official communication with the fediverse seems fine though.
Look, if you are young I suspect you cannot imagine a world without social media. If have never left your apartment or still live in moms basement I suspect you cannot imagine a world outside your computer.
Social media has only one purpose: advertising revenue. That ball of wax is not something the adults in the room want to waste their time with.
It would also be a moderation nightmare because of the massive amount of precedent, laws, and regulations about official government comms.
The real unsolved problem of social media is moderation. If we could crack that, it might make sense to offer it as a public service. Until then, it’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen.
That said, TikTok has clearly gotten Congress thinking about it.
Q: What are you allowed to post? A: What congress and the courts decide you are.
They are actually beholden to 1A, but you still can’t commit crimes.
More importantly, it takes the profit incentive away so “engagement” doesn’t matter anymore. The sites will always be there so they don’t need infinite scroll short video blasts to keep you entertained for several hours a day.