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BBC Research & Development

Hello to our new followers, which, for the one and only time, is everyone...

We'll be verifying our account very soon, but in the meantime, our top level domain should hopefully help confirm our identity, and we've also written about why we're here on Mastodon, what was involved to get here, and the other BBC accounts you can follow.

Say hi, follow and give us a boost!

bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2023-07-mast

129 comments
Chalkllate

@BBCRD@social.bbc Hi BBC media person and or team :3 I hope you have a good day im proud of you

Em-squared

@BBCRD A very warm welcome. Very good to see you here.

Mackaj

@BBCRD

Welcome. Great to have you folks join the Fediverse.

Hopefully over time you'll add accounts here that promote content from your news feeds. Today I have to follow bot accounts from random instances that scrape and re-publish your content from Twitter ( 𝕏 ). Would be nice to have a reliable authentic source.

Also looking forward to see what else you get up to :)

mediocrequalitymeme

@mackaj @BBCRD there are some radio accounts already, hope more will follow

Here you go
@BBCRadio4
@BBC5Live

Kenneth Freeman :linux: :tor:

@BBCRD Welcome to the club! Come on in, the water's fine...

Alfred Chow - Maker of Things

@BBCRD
Hello!
Looking forward to see what you do here and hoping that you get to stay.

Birgitte Windwood.

@BBCRD Awesome! Here, as you know, BBC owns its content, but on Twitter/X Elon Musk owns your content. I deleted my Twitter/X account 25 minutes ago. I'm happy with Mastodon. BBC, just give it time to grow.

Mike Liebhold

@BBCRD Welcome! Thanks BBC for igniting a guiding light for other serious journals, journalists and organizations to follow into the fediverse.

Michael Veale

great to see @BBCRD and @BBCRadio4 etc on the fediverse...! although buying a ccTLD is an expensive way to verify yourself (upward of $150k...)

Michael Veale

@BBCRD @BBCRadio4 also exciting to see a new legal basis for Mastodon data protection — public task, based on the BBC's royal charter

Christian Kent

@floppyplopper @mikarv @BBCRD @BBCRadio4 Peanuts for a country the size of the UK and it's a virtual real estate you should claim, especially in that industry.

Lurking Jane

@mikarv @floppyplopper you have to remember they got a shitton of money and get to depreciate it or write it off through accounting. It would be like us investing in a decent external hard drive or a good keyboard. Maybe not necessary but definitely a good idea.

Discontinued Plopper

@mikarv @BBCRD @BBCRadio4
ok, I just realised who else might be interested in buying dot bbc and on the face of it this is a really sensible use of money.

Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
@mikarv Erm, ccTLD are country-code TLDs, I don't think the BBC is a country. ^^
Captain Dragonfrog Queernabs

@mikarv @BBCRD @BBCRadio4

For what it's worth, the .bbc TLD has existed since 2015. They don't seem to have made a lot of use of it...

icannwiki.org/.bbc

mdransfield

@mikarv @BBCRD @BBCRadio4 Buying domain names for lots of money is something for which the BBC has previous.

theregister.com/2005/10/05/bbc

Jim Easterbrook

@BBCRD I would have expected "social.bbc.co.uk" or "social.bbc.com", but if you say you own ".bbc" I'll believe you. (-:

Stu

@BBCRD This seems like a thoughtful introduction to the Fediverse. Hope it works out and that you're able to bring more of the BBC content here.

hjhornbeck

@BBCRD Welcome aboard! Hopefully you enjoy it here.

João Tiago Rebelo

@BBCRD Olá e sejam bem-vindos! ("Hello, welcome!" in Portuguese).

Łukasz Słupski

Hello @BBCRD 👋
I hope social.bbc/@BBCWorld and social.bbc/@BBCNews will start tooting soon.

Ewan

@BBCRD@social.bbc Hello BBC! Hope you stay in the Fediverse!

DELETED

@BBCRD just be cool with your fedi R&D alright... :blobcatpeek2:

Rihards Olups

@BBCRD Tā, @airisa, tūlīt te būs visi, izņemot Latvijas organizācijas…

airisa

@richlv @BBCRD Mhmm. Baidos, ka Tavas prognozes ir diezgan precīzas.
Bet forša ziņa par BBC.
Un vispār otra foršā lieta man te ir communities opcija un iespēja visādas instances salikt kaudzītē un paskatīties, kas tur notiek.

Dave Morris

@BBCRD Hello! I'm glad you've joined, and look forward to various other branches of the BBC also joining in!

The Void ザ・ヴォイド #PR!

@BBCRD Boosted! Great to see you here, & hope to see a lot more BBC folk joining social.bbc soon! Good article too, thanks.

Andrew

@BBCRD be great if you can toot here when new stations/channels/programmes/presenters are added to be able to follow them, BBC Radio 6 soon please 🙂

Sian

@BBCRD Very cool to see you here, thank you for testing the waters!

joël

@BBCRD welcome! looking forwards to the TARDIS-account!

Riquiñez :cine_disney_stich:

@BBCRD Hi! Thank you for trying the Fediverse. I hope that will be the first step of many here.

Thank you for making the effort to come here and try to understand. It speaks out loud about your pioneer personality 😌

JuneSim63

@BBCRD Welcome. I always suggest new accounts follow @feditips for excellent tips on navigating the Fediverse (but I am sure you're all pretty au fait with it by now!)

Miah Johnson

@BBCRD Welcome to the Fediverse. I hope y'all stay, and can learn a thing or three about fighting the good fight.

I hope you know that as soon as you post articles supporting TERFs you're gonna be de-federated, so keep that in mind. Maybe pass that up the chain..

Ghost of Hope

@BBCRD Hi, please be warned that transphobia will get you defederated here.

mintiefresh 🇨🇦

@BBCRD Welcome! I've always felt it made sense for governments and other organizations to host their own instances. That way they are in control of their content and not at the whim of a private corporation.

Glad to see you guys here!

bilbo_le_hobbit :bzh:

@BBCRD welcome ! I can't wait for BBCRadio6 now...

Ned Yeung

@BBCRD Welcome to Mastodon! So glad to have you!

I really hope to see the #CBC on here soon as well, as all I see is mirrors.

FurbyOnSteroids

@BBCRD
Interesting. Experiment of 6 months to see if it's worth it regarding reach, risk etc.
Looking forward to the results and (hopefully) (semi-)regular updates on the way!

StammHolz

@BBCRD@social.bbc You say it an experiment. Do you fix the parameters already what means failing or success? What are "enough people"? 100.000 1 Million, 10 Million?

blue
@BBCRD i want to see huw edwards back on the television
Prior Industry 🇺🇦

@BBCRD Fantastic that BBC has decided to do this 👌

Emmet O'Neill

@BBCRD Welcome BBC! It's cool to see the BBC leading the pack with regards to bringing official and reliable sources of media and journalism to the decentralized fediverse.

Hopefully what the BBC is doing here will serve as a template for other organizations to follow.

Harlan (He/Him)

@BBCRD Very cool to see this strategy being used, as opposed to simply getting an account on one of the main Mastodon instances. Welcome!

Stephen Ball

@BBCRD Hi! Welcome to the fediverse space! I’m glad to see this experiment and hope it has good outcomes.

Caro S.

@BBCRD Hope you leave the anti-transpropaganda behind you. CC @BBCRD .

Bob Harvey

@BBCRD so, welcome.

Where does this leave @bbcworld ?

Do you know who created that?

Petra van Cronenburg

@BBCRD Welcome! May your idea with the instance influence many more media!

Gytis Repečka

@BBCRD Welcome to the fediverse 👋 I'm sure you'll have great time here :fediverse:

LaetSgo :unverified:

@BBCRD welcome to the fediverse 🤗
hope you'll enjoy it here

Adam Dalliance

The BBC starting a fedi server is a good step and a pretty big deal. Only using it for BBC staff is the right move. If they should decide to host randoms they should do it from a different domain anyway.

Will be interesting to see how their six month experiment proceeds. How their moderation of replies works and how they'll report or defed other servers as required.

Will Facebook turn on federation before the experiment is over?

Hope it goes well and they continue afterwards and indefinitely. Be nice to them everyone.

social.bbc/@BBCRD/110809338455

@BBCRD

The BBC starting a fedi server is a good step and a pretty big deal. Only using it for BBC staff is the right move. If they should decide to host randoms they should do it from a different domain anyway.

Will be interesting to see how their six month experiment proceeds. How their moderation of replies works and how they'll report or defed other servers as required.

👻👻 Flippin' spook, Tucker!

@pre They have an accompanying blog post bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2023-07-mast which contains this very encouraging sentence:

>

"The principles of the Fediverse, with an emphasis on local control, quality content, and social value, are far more aligned with our public purposes than those of avowedly commercial networks like Threads or Twitter."

Adam Dalliance

@losttourist Yes, the BBC is mostly pretty good when the government isn't interfering with them.

It's happening. We're gonna redecentralize the whole web.

CEO of Monoeye Dating
@pre @BBCRD "Boy, what's the *one* thing I want more of on fedi? Government and corporate propaganda!"

How about you go back to Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit if you want to be a corporate whore?
Rampagecat

@BBCRD wooohoo... Glad to see you here.
Does this mean, I can get BBC news updates from this???

crossgolf_rebel on Calckey

@BBCRD@social.bbc Hello and welcome to the Fediverse

Verification via a separate instance, nothing more about that
👍

Since you're experimenting, don't look solely at Mastodon, which feels more like a bike with the handbrake on compared to Pleroma, Akkoma, Calckey, Misskey and Firefish. And those are just the current micreoblogging services.

Glad you are here

grte

@BBCRD This is an exciting development and I hope other news organizations try something similar (looking at you CBC News).

Jean-Francois Mezei

@BBCRD Will this account carry the BBC announcements, or should we follow you to wait for an announcement of the "real" BBC account that will eventually be created?
Also, once you do create a real account for BBC, you should take soe actions to ensure the "bird makeup" copies on mastodon of your twitter posts are marked to show they are out of date and point to your real acocunt.

Deus
Correction *Ahem*

The BBC on the Fediverse, not Mastodon (the product).
Antaine Mac Aoidh

@BBCRD oooh this is very exciting! Hello from one BBCer to another! 🤘🏻

Markus Klötzer

@BBCRD on the subject of moderation you mention in your article, I am sure you are aware that, as an instance, you have the ultimate solution of defederating servers which continue to allow abusive replies.

Andrea Barbieri

@BBCRD welcome! Any chance of getting a #bbcradio6 account? I was following Chris Hawkins on Twitter but no longer present there

Bakt El Raalis

@BBCRD : done, welcome on the fediverse! 👋

StammHolz

@BBCRD@social.bbc You say it an experiment. Do you fix the parameters already what means failing or success? What are "enough people"? 100.000 1 Million, 10 Million?

Dave Bell

@BBCRD

Hiya. That's a decent web page. I know the whole #Fediverse has had to cope with a lot of new users. I am mostly lurking.

tillian 🦊🦇🇵🇸:antifa: ACAB

@BBCRD nah screw yall come back when you apologize for your anti trans shit

Zai Sarel

@BBCRD cool when are you going to fix your transphobia?

Stefan Ferreira 🏳️‍🌈

@BBCRD would be great if more media orgs followed your example. Hope the experiment goes well!

Simon Wood

@BBCRD Hi, welcome to the #Fediverse! Do encourage #BBCRadio3 to come on over, please!

ϻค𝔬ᑭ

@BBCRD welcome, and greetings from 🇲🇽 México! :ablobcathappypaws:

rich

@BBCRD welcome and please don't call #Mastodon "a Twitter-like social network" 😬😋

Shadow, First of His Name

@BBCRD Looking forward to #DoctorWho related account like you did with Twitter. Welcome to #Mastodon and the #Fediverse.

Skullvalanche

@BBCRD super exciting to see a big news entity in in the Fediverse! Welcome! :blobcatwave:

Dasy2k1

@BBCRD hi there.

And a suggestion that the BBC tech news team (do click still exist?) could be a good first group here to actually add content

Branch Predictor :mycomputer:

@BBCRD is it true that you're hosting your instance on BBC Micro?

(.... ;-))

Ninmi

@BBCRD Going with your own domain/instance is how it's done. Warm welcomes.

Sofie :verified_gay:

@BBCRD Hello and welcome to Fediverse! Tuning in from #Hachyderm :hachyderm:

:blobfoxwave:

Bongmaster

@BBCRD
6 months should be plenty of time. Just engage with folk, follow and boost, and if in doubt ask :)

FriendlyFiend

@BBCRD Hi BBC. Great to see you! I hope you'll soon have a Radio 3 account on here.

wandrew

@BBCRD do you think the bbc's presence on the fediverse will have any impact on bofa?

Mark

@BBCRD Great stuff. Definitely more closely aligned with your mission!

Sami Määttä

@BBCRD Nice! How do you plan on measuring engagement here? This was one question that was posed when I advocated for Mastodon on LinkedIn.

#engagement

Jonathan T

@SamiMaatta @BBCRD If you get no response, they're running their own instance so they'll be able to get as much data as they like. Someone who can give you more insight is Martin Holland of Heise, @mho, who have been doing the equivalent of the BBC for a few months now. Eg see his thread here (nb he posts in German and English - this one is in German) social.heise.de/@mho/110727882

Sami Määttä

@JonnyT Interesting! Thanks for this. I wouldn't otherwise have any info about using analytics here.

Edit: Would be really interesting to get an actual "how to" and "possibilities of" about the analytics.

@BBCRD @mho

Martin Holland

@SamiMaatta @JonnyT @BBCRD As an editor and not a dev I use the tools I know how to use and that I already had available when I started doing this while @heiseonline was still on mastodon.social. That's why I use URL-parameter, which is not super exactly, but this way I have 10 months of data. See more at:
firefish.social/notes/9b11x6g4
firefish.social/notes/9cw5gry5
firefish.social/notes/9eny4jfa
firefish.social/notes/9f6txoya
firefish.social/notes/9haaeu79

@SamiMaatta @JonnyT @BBCRD As an editor and not a dev I use the tools I know how to use and that I already had available when I started doing this while @heiseonline was still on mastodon.social. That's why I use URL-parameter, which is not super exactly, but this way I have 10 months of data. See more at:
firefish.social/notes/9b11x6g4
firefish.social/notes/9cw5gry5
firefish.social/notes/9eny4jfa
firefish.social/notes/9f6txoya
firefish.social/notes/9haaeu79

📄 Mehdi.doc

@BBCRD
"Looking ahead, could we move beyond Mastodon to other ActivityPub applications for publishing content?"
Yes. Peertube. Now.

Also I'm pretty sure you could work with either Writefreely, Bookwyrm or Lemmy (though the last is more difficult to handle).

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