Trialling ActivityPub and the federated model for social media and it's possibilities for the BBC.

“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.”

  • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2291·
    1 year ago

    That’s amazing, I hope all journalists and government alerts have their own instance. It’s way better than a blog because it can be updated so easily, they’re used to twitter and their alerts and it’s open to see while they control everything about it. Happy to see it.

    Edit: Cool graphic too: https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/sites/50335ff370b5c262af000004/assets/64c7859d06d63e5047000311/fediverse-overview-16x9.png

    • Zeth0s@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4214·
      1 year ago

      Why an instance instead of joining an existing one? They can join the effort and do few ones where several publishers can use to create official accounts

      Edit. Why you guys are downvoting a discussion? Is this place becoming reddit? We are just chatting, relax

      • PeleSpirit@lemmy.worldEnglish
        971·
        1 year ago

        Because they can control who is on it, they’re journalists only, and still be out in the open with no sign ins. What would be the benefit of them joining other instances? That would be an odd choice.

        • 💡dim@lemmy.worldEnglish
          43·
          1 year ago

          exactly this, they can control what is on it, give their journalists, shows, etc accounts and it being a self contained hub for everything bbc, while interacting with rest of the fediverse.

          Im guessing they will also get more statistics and information from hosting it themselves as well. its a no brainer.

      • tcj@lemmy.worldEnglish
        641·
        1 year ago

        Because then someone else would be able to control and censor their content. Really every business should make their own server to ensure that they’re the ones fully in control of their content - this is the entire point of federation.

      • Dave@lemmy.worldEnglish
        39·
        1 year ago

        I think the USA’s National Weather Service Twitter presence is a good example.

        If you look deep enough you’ll see caveats like “supplemental service provided by NWS” and “Twitter feeds and tweets do not always reflect the most current information”, but the truth is that a lot of people (and news organizations) depend on Twitter as their main interface to the NWS, and rarely if ever go to their website.

        That obviously creates a tension, which bubbles up in scares like this:

        Before last weekend’s storm, the National Weather Service’s Baltimore-Washington office sent this tweet saying that because of a new Twitter policy, automated tweets that show advisories, watches, and warnings might not load.

        Contrast that to a world where NOAA (the federal administration which runs NWS) has their own instance: they get the benefit of being able to disseminate updates in a consumer friendly ‘social media’ style and they retain full control of platform and can be sure the service won’t be held hostage, or go down in the middle of a storm.

        Finally: if you’re reading this from the USA, consider contact NOAA/NWS to let them know you’d like a fediverse presence, I did!

      • neutron@thelemmy.clubEnglish
        19·
        1 year ago

        Having their own instance as a public organization adds more legitimacy to their publications. Think of government officials using the organizations domains for email instead of gmail.

    • skilltheamps@feddit.deEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      One of Germany’s public broadcasting services also started running an instance for anyone part of the federal media network: https://ard.social/about

      Translation:

      ARD.social is a basis for ARD’s appearances in the #Fediverse network, an amalgamation of various platforms and projects. Regional and nationwide brands, broadcasts, programs and institutions of the federal media network can create profiles at ARD.social. The Mastodon instance ARD.social is operated by Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).

      Also the Tagesschau, which is the most important television news show in Germany, is there.

      • kameecoding@lemmy.worldEnglish
        783·
        1 year ago

        even if that’s true, which it isn’t, wouldn’t that still be a hundred times bettee than shit like Fox News? or what Bezos did with news company he bought?

      • Mereo@lemmy.caEnglish
        534·
        1 year ago

        If you look at the structure of the BBC, it’s an INDEPENDENT, publicly funded news organisation. The government has no say in its editorial. It has exposed many British government scandals in the past.

        • Tippon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          17·
          1 year ago

          While the person you’re replying to seems to be trolling, there is a legitimate argument that the BBC is influenced by the current government. The argument is that the current government has had a hand in appointing the current BBC director, and he’s a member of the Conservative party or a donor.

          I haven’t looked into it for a while, so am not up to speed on the details, but if the detractors are correct, it’s not a good look for the BBC.

          • cynar@lemmy.worldEnglish
            17·
            1 year ago

            Unfortunately, BBC news has been corrupted from the inside. It used to be impressively independent of the UK government. It was happy to hold any politician’s feet to the fire. This is why the conservative party worked so hard to put their own stooge at the top. Careers now stop progressing, if you are overly critical of the government, at least in the news department.

            Overall the BBC still leans slightly left, and produces a lot of good material. I no longer trust it to report evenly on our government anymore. It’s still a lot better than most news organisations overall however.