"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."

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[–] simple@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (13 children)

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 109 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

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

[–] breakfastmtn@geddit.social 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

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

[–] Kushi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] breakfastmtn@geddit.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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 sites are legit.

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