“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.”
For those on a Kbin instance you can follow the whole instance to see everything they post:
https://kbin.social/d/social.bbc
If this is a success many more should follow
is there a way to subscribe to that from lemmy?
I don’t think so since lemmy doesn’t integrate with mastodon like kbin
@dumples @jocanib @amanaftermidnight how can i follow kbin from mastodon??
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Spoken like a true nazi
Edgy af
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.
Could be that BBC employees can have their own accounts on mastodon going forward
You’ve missed the entire point of Federation then.
It’s instant verification for all their accounts and an instance that won’t disappear on them.
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.comandtide@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. hahaIt also solves the verification problem. It’s without a doubt the best way to go for an organization -especially news orgs.
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.
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 accounts are legit.
I would give you all the uploads if I could. This 1,000%
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.
Treat it like email. Thats how Mastodon will grow
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.
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!”
Do I have to pay a social media tax to interact with it?
No but you need a loicense
Is it possible to follow their account if I’m on Lemmy.world? I’m sorry I’m new to all this.
You can follow Lemmy communities from Mastadon but not the other way around. And it doesn’t work well anyway.
You can use Kbin for both Lemmy and Mastadon.
But Mastadon content is not very Lemmy-like so if all you want is the BBC toots, but not a Mastadon account, you might as well bookmark bbc.social and scroll it occasionally.
As a Canadian I’ve sent a formal letter to the CBC asking them to do the same. I’d suggest other Canadians join me and send formal letters to CBC on their site if you want something like this here in Canada. Personally, I really like how BBC did this and would love others to follow.
This is great. I don’t really care about the BBC since I’m not from or live in the UK, but more decentralization is always good.
I mean, while that’s fair, they cover worldwide as well, I’d say most of the news they cover is worldwide.
In fact their world coverage is some what objetive because their coverage of UK is a disgusting exercise in bootlicking.
Their coverage is just really shitty.
Thats true. I’m not in an english speaking country so their news generally don’t reach me.
Wow this is greats news, hoping more people join federated social network!
The more exposure the better (for better or worse). As the fediverse grows we gotta watch for the growing pains of becoming a large social media platform.
If you read this as the #nsfw version it’s a lot funnier.
Ah yes, the massive (pun intended) drawback of hashtags. Unless you actually wanted to follow a mix of news and porn.
“Unless”?
That’s a good time, my friend!
It’s risk mitigation on their part to not have their platform controlled by somebody else, especially someone with an agenda like Elon Musk.
Would like to see them set up a Lemmy instance as well.
And of course, it’s always good to get in these things early, but not too early in case things don’t work out.
Federation is the future of social media for exactly this reason, especially in the twitter-like realm where who is saying it is as (or more) important than what is being said. These people and organizations need to control their brand outside the scope of commercial pressure from the platform.
especially in the twitter-like realm where who is saying it is as (or more) important than what is being said.
I know right? So great to be in a place where nobody cares who you are. Gets tiring.
It’s nice to just not stand out and be accepted as a normal member of a community.
Ah yes, more transphobic capitalist corporation on the fedi, surely federating with them will have no repercussion whatsoever /s Fuck them and anyone who federate with this bigots
I get what you mean, but I don’t think we should defederate with them. You must realise that this makes Mastodon more mainstream, which in the long term is a good thing.
Truly this is what winning looks like.
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BBC is just a propaganda apparatus of the British government.
Every media is. You must filter news from multiple Organisation to understand the Real news
true that.
They have their moments of this. But they still do have some genuinely good stuff.
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.
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.
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.
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?
They are just the same as fox news
well that’s some ignorant shit, lol
“I have no idea what I’m saying”
I wouldn’t read too hard into it, he’s just trolling this comment thread based on his profile 🙄
whats about my profile?
It is successful troll then. They got good numbers on the down side of votes. That’s the troll goal, right?
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.
The other one did as well (https://zdf.social)
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
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.
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!
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!
Good idea! I just emailed NWS.PA@noaa.gov to ask them not only for a Mastodon instance to replace this stuff, but also for a PeerTube instance to replace https://www.youtube.com/@noaanationalweatherservice .
Thanks for the details
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Good point
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.
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.
Good point. You guys are right. It is a good choice
Just for records sake, we can see recently with Musk and Twitter and how he manipulated NPR’s image by denoting them as “state media”.
Them having their own instance would serve the same purpose as being verified because of the domain.
Thanks, makes sense
Pretty damn cool tbh
Even though I take issue with the BBC, I hope they choose to stay on mastadon in the long term. A large organisation like the BBC on a federated platform is sure to spread word and hopefully convince more people to join the fediverse and see it a a feasible alternative to the current big tech landscape.
This is how twitter and Youtube picked up pace. News organizations stsrted slowly creeping towards it and they have a lot of incentive to do so with how twitter is becoming a cesspool of Nazis and CSAM.
What social do most UK users use ATM? Are they on meta/twitter or some UK specific one?
Pretty much the same as the US (and I imagine other English-speaking countries) with similar age distribution (i.e. facebook mums, tiktok kids) and of course toxic cesspit behaviour on twiitter.
