Swiss authorities to join social media alternative Mastodon

© Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

The Swiss federal authorities plan to open social media accounts on Mastodon, seen as an alternative to X, formerly known as Twitter. 

Mastodon is a decentralised online platform that allows it to escape the control of a single company and state censorship.

The Federal Departments of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA), and Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER) will open official accounts on the “social.admin.ch” server. Federal Council spokesperson André Simonazzi will also have his own official account, the Federal Chancellery said in a press release on Tuesday.

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This initiative is part of a one-year pilot project, at the end of which an evaluation will be made, the Chancellery further specifies. It does not influence the use of other social networks currently used by the Federal Council and the administration for their communication, such as X or Instagram.

The Mastodon network was founded in 2016 by a young German software developer, Eugen Rochko. The main difference with a platform like X lies in its decentralised network. It is made up of servers independent of each other.

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“Mastodon is respectful of data protection, because it is the operators of the instances who decide what happens to user data. They are mostly transparent in this regard, limiting data collection to the minimum necessary for operation and excluding explicitly the sale and trade of data,” underlines the Chancellery.

Mastodon saw its user numbers jump after billionaire Elon Musk took over Twitter. Some users of the social network formerly symbolised by a little blue bird feared a relaxation of the content control policy, opening the way to messages of disinformation and hatred.

The network launched in Germany, however, remains relatively confidential. On its site, Mastodon reports 1.7 million active users. X, for its part, has between 200 and 350 million active users, according to estimates.

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