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The BBC on Mastodon: experimenting with distributed and decentralised social media (www.bbc.co.uk)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
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"As the social media landscape ebbs and flows, the team at BBC Research & Development are researching social technologies and exploring possibilities for the BBC. One part of our work is to establish a BBC presence in the distributed collection of social networks known as the Fediverse, a collection of social media applications all linked together by common protocols. The most common software used in this area is Mastodon, a Twitter-like social networking service with around 2 million active monthly users. We are now running an experimental BBC Mastodon server at https://social.bbc where you can follow some of the BBC’s social media accounts, including BBC R&D, Radio 4 and 5 Live. We hope to be able to add more accounts from other areas of the BBC at some point."

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[–] 17 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (8 children)

It's interesting that they decided to make their own server and not just join a popular instances like Mastodon Social. I know part of it is then experimenting but if the goal is to just have a presence in the Fediverse, it sounds like a lot of effort for little reason.

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  • [–] 110 points 3 years ago* (3 children)

    It's interesting you have this opinion; I figured this would be the biggest draw for corporations-- they're no longer beholden to some third party for their media presence-- it's all hosted and controlled by themselves;.

    In email terms, it's the difference between tide@gmail.com and tide@tide.com.

    Edit: I don't have any idea why I went with tide, so if you find yourself wondering why I did that, get in line. haha

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  • [–] 16 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    It also solves the verification problem. It's without a doubt the best way to go for an organization - especially news orgs.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    That's true, but to be honest there's already a pretty good verification system on Mastodon, even if you don't host your own instance.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    Yes and no. And verifying by domain is better, especially for people who are likely to be impersonated (ex. Journalists).

    Rel="me" doesn't actually verify a user's identity, it verifies that a user has a relationship with a website. The problem is that you need to leave Mastodon to make sure that the website actually verifies their identity. I've verified a connection between a Mastodon and Pixelfed account, for example, but it doesn't tell you anything about who I am. It's also much easier to spoof a website than it is to get the BBC to give you an account on their private instance.

    It really works great the other way though! If you have a known identity here, you can be sure that the linked sites are legit.

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  • [–] 25 points 3 years ago

    You may as well say the same thing about having their own website vs using Facebook.

    This kind of thing is exactly the point of the Fediverse. They control and own their content, they control who gets to post from their URL.

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago

    No, this is what they should be doing. It's the difference between owning your house and renting. They get to make the rules on their instance, they're not at the mercy of a tech bro company or a trash billionaire that might have a political agenda against actual journalism...

    After what happened to the BBC and NPR on Twitter, who can blame them for saying "Fine, we'll do it ourselves!"

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    I guess with twitter they learned the lesson of being beholden to a rogue CEO/admin who can take away verified status or change the rules on a whim. It is better that they maintain their own official presence that they control.

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