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Dutch government says it may stop using Facebook over privacy concerns

The Dutch government said Friday that it may be forced to stop using Facebook after a warning from the Netherlands’ privacy regulator about the Meta owned social media platform’s privacy risks.

The Dutch Data Protection Authority (DPA) issued a statement advising the Dutch Interior Ministry not to rely on Facebook pages to communicate with citizens if it doesn’t have a clear idea of how Facebook uses the personal data of people who visit government pages.

IverCoder ,

Unfortunately the tech-illiterate heads that control DOST would reject such proposal.

Mikina ,

But... They said that privacy is the most important thing for them 0_0
https://about.meta.com/actions/protecting-privacy-and-security/

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

Thank god, governments (local and larger) should not be using Facebook as a sole/primary means of communication.

It's infinitely frustrating that my own municipality makes announcements and shares public information on a platform that is not always accessible to the residents that constitute that municipality.

Information should be shared on the official municipality website in the same manner, and copied over to Facebook for ease of access to those who use it.

IverCoder ,

Philippines should be next. Unfortunately the lack of net neutrality allows our telcos to literally provide unlimited text-only Facebook access for free, like wtf...

ahriboy ,
@ahriboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Free at the cost of user data being trashed out. DOST servers could host a Mastodon instance.

MonkderDritte ,

You are late!

Linkerbaan ,
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world avatar

Great news. Treat all social media equally.

aeharding ,
@aeharding@vger.social avatar

Good. Also you shouldn’t need a relationship with a corporation (account) to get information from government agencies…

SirQuackTheDuck ,

You don't. They're usually posting awareness campaigns that link to government sites.

I've opted the example to elsewhere, but they'd be like "bought a house? Find out how the taxes work on (link)"

aeharding ,
@aeharding@vger.social avatar

It depends on the government I suppose. US National Weather Service offices posts bunch of weather info exclusively to Twitter (and sometimes Facebook).

stellargmite ,

Yeh generally it’s about reach.
In the case of NWS Technically its not exclusive as their data and messaging is distributed by other channels, including traditional, and their own site(s). But for ticking the social media box they're likely to select the platforms with the most reach. Dissappointing that its only the one if that is the case, but the US is the land of officiated orthodoxy I’ve found. There are advantages sometimes - less triplication of labour in the case of humans needing to curate social media output for example. Bring on interoperability of platforms, please.

aeharding ,
@aeharding@vger.social avatar

Technically its not exclusive as their data and messaging is distributed by other channels, including traditional, and their own site(s)

Not in my experience. I know because I’ve corresponded with my office, and complained about posts that aren’t tied to a particular weather product (like the Weather Story) or disseminated otherwise.

Cheradenine ,

Can you read posts on Facebook without an account? Last time I tried it wasn't possible.

SirQuackTheDuck ,

The posts aren't constraining the information though.
They're effectively advertisements linking to the information (advertising they have info for you to read).

The information itself is public and freely accessible.

Cheradenine ,

My question was can you view Facebook without an account?

douglasg14b ,
@douglasg14b@lemmy.world avatar

In many cases no it is not...

The sheriff's department in my town for example has no information on the public website for the municipality. All of their information is shared on Facebook and only Facebook.

The same thing goes with many other departments and public services.

mp3 ,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

Good. Start your own Mastodon instance exclusively for government accounts, and let users subscribe to those accounts from other instances.

Bonus is that you get RSS feeds for every account on Mastodon.

maynarkh ,

The Dutch govt is way ahead of you on that one.

cosmicrookie ,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

I left it back in November when they forced me to either pay or accept. That said, we need a replacement for facebook, that is made for the EU and by the EU. Sure fediverse is great, but it still is a niche social media for us nerds.

We need the Facebook styled feed that 60+ year olds feel comfortable scrolling through, instead of the Reddit wannabe format

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

I have no need for this in my life, so I'm not sure about the specifics. But isn't diaspora fediverse and supposed to be more like Facebook, rather than microblogging or lemmy?

AshMan85 ,

so should everyone.

Serantek ,

W Dutchland

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

Deutschland uber alles.

cosmicrookie ,
@cosmicrookie@lemmy.world avatar

That's the wrong Dutch

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

Serantek started it.

silasmariner ,

If serantek jumped of a bridge would you do it?

admin ,
@admin@lemmy.my-box.dev avatar

Oof, that's a tough one. Can he swim? Can I? What's the water temperature?

Actually, it doesn't matter.

DON'T WORRY Serantek@lemmy.world, I'LL SAVE YOU!

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