Government use of private social media has become an issue that bothers me disproportionately to what it should (naked promotion/enrichment of specific private businesses while compelling citizens to become their customers), but here's more https://www.engadget.com/social-media/the-social-security-administration-is-reportedly-moving-all-official-communication-to-x-223201698.html . Would it be okay if what they were using federated? Or does there just need to be a publicly run platform (federated or not)? Or should it be privately run on a bid-based system like other government contracts?
@johns As far as I'm concerned, it's fine for official broadcast/write-only government communications to be on a privately held platform, as long as they can be accessible with an open API, ad free, on a non-discriminatory basis. I don't believe that twitter meets this bar, but Mastodon does.
@johns I think some European governments were experimenting with fedi/Mastodon public communication so checking with their experience might be helpful. Owning the platform instance comes with some liability, in a jurisdiction which respects law, that is mitigated when they are just another customer of a private service, so lawful places are being careful with what they do
One thing it should obviously not be is a platform actually owned and run privately by government officials (truth social, X..).