The German federal government has set up a WhatsApp channel.
The Press and Information Office of the German Federal Government follows the Bundestag on Whatsapp. Thousands of users subscribe on the first day.
(Bild: hyotographics/Shutterstock.com)
The Press and Information Office of the German Federal Government (BPA) has just launched a WhatsApp channel. The office provides updates on current political decisions and government plans. The BPA is following the example of the Bundestag, which launched its WhatsApp service at the beginning of the year.
The Bundestag now has 18,000 subscribers. The new "Federal Government" channel gained 8,000 subscribers in just a few hours on Wednesday. The Whatsapp channel is managed by the Press and Information Office's social media editorial team. It is responsible for several other appearances of the Federal Government and the Federal Chancellor on meta platforms (Instagram, Facebook), as well as on Tiktok, X, YouTube and Mastodon.
On Whatsapp, channels can be found in the "News" tab. Users must accept Meta Platforms' separate terms and conditions before accessing them for the first time. On mobile devices on which Whatsapp is installed, the federal government channel can also be accessed via the link https://bpaq.de/whatsapp.
100 official Mastodon accounts
The Mastodon sites of public bodies of the Federal Republic of Germany and some federal states are set up on a server of the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI), social.bund.de. There are already one hundred different active accounts there, including two for the Bundestag (@bundestag and @hib_Nachrichten, where hib stands for Heute im Bundestag, but I'm sure you know that).
The spectrum ranges from the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and the German data portal Govdata to the German Weather Service, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and customs. Courts, ministries, state parliaments, foundations, institutes, offices, advisory boards, insurance companies, the German Armed Forces, the Federal Agency for Technical Relief and others provide information on Mastodon free of third-party advertising.
There does not yet appear to be a structured directory of offers. The directory shows the most recently active accounts on social.bund.de.
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