Discussion
Now seems like a pretty good time to re-link my proposal from October that news organizations stand up Mastodon servers.
In the proposal, I explain why a news organization (and other organizations) might want to have their own Mastodon (or other social network service) hosted on their subdomain, e.g. follow.washingtonpost.com.
https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s13e17-a-proposal-for-news-organization-mastodon/
... and then in s13e19: Just Because We Can Doesn't (Necessarily) Mean We Should: Mastodon and Social Networks Edition, I write about reasons why an organization wouldn't want to run* their own instance, or why running such an instance might be needless.
* "run" here means have a Mastodon (or other activitypub/social network service), not necessarily administer. Hosted services make sense. My personal instance is hosted.
https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s13e19-just-because-we-can-doesnt-necessarily/
Now, I have a few VERY big reasons why an institution ought not to rush into running its own instance.
Some caveats/base assumptions: I'm writing here mainly about two kinds of instance: (1) an institutional instance for only staffers and (2) an institutional instance (e.g. subdomain) which also allows open/non-staffer users.
First: like I write in my original proposal, institutional instances inheriting trust from existing domains is additive and works alongside existing verification methods like rel=me link verification.
Institutional instances don't supplant that, and rel=me link verification is obviously an easier lift.
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But, there's more:
I followed up the proposal for news organizations to stand up their own social media/Mastodon servers with a couple more newsletter episodes of notes.
In s13e18: Mastodon, or What Happens When Your Software Has Opinions And Now You Have Choices, I write about the high-level implications of instance moderation, choice, and opinionated software -- in this case, opinionated software and opinionated platforms.
https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s13e18-mastodon-or-what-happens-when-your-7233/