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.”

  • simple@lemm.eeEnglish
    237·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • joe@lemmy.world
      96·
      1 year ago

      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

      • Adam@geddit.social
        16·
        1 year ago

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

    • jocanib@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      70·
      1 year ago

      It’s instant verification for all their accounts and an instance that won’t disappear on them.

    • Meldroc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      1 year 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!”