EU Joins Mastodon Social Network, Sets Up Its Own Server

2022-04-29

There's been a lot of chatter about "free speech" and "censorship" on the popular social platforms (Twitter, Facebook, and others), and I'm constantly confused by it. We have federated social media (the Fediverse) that allows anyone to set up a server and publish posts that can be consumed from other servers, via the web, or via RSS. The idea that elected government officials are using Twitter to publish updates is extremely strange, and it's even weirder that they do so while complaining about the rules Twitter imposes.

So, with that context, it's a breath of fresh air to see the EU approaching this problem in the most obvious way imaginable: have the government run their own server! I'd be very supportive if the U.S. government did this so representatives of the people could communicate with their constituents.

To be clear, having the government run their own server isn't magic pixie dust that will solve all the problems. But it will allow the government to directly confront those problems and optimize for healthy discourse rather than going through Twitter, which cares less about healthy discourse and more about advertising revenue.

EU Joins Mastodon Social Network, Sets Up Its Own Server