“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.”
Because they can control who is on it, they’re journalists only, and still be out in the open with no sign ins. What would be the benefit of them joining other instances? That would be an odd choice.
exactly this, they can control what is on it, give their journalists, shows, etc accounts and it being a self contained hub for everything bbc, while interacting with rest of the fediverse.
Im guessing they will also get more statistics and information from hosting it themselves as well. its a no brainer.
Good point