The White House on Monday launched accounts on Meta’s Threads service for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, gaining a sizable following on an app that competes with Elon Musk’s X.
Accounts on Threads were also established for the first lady and second gentleman as well as for the White House itself. Biden’s account racked up 2 million followers within an hour of its debut.
The Threads push comes after Musk last week called an antisemitic conspiracy theory “the actual truth” on X to his 163 million listed followers. He also said some “Jewish communities” promote “anti-white” messaging and views, calling out the Anti-Defamation League and minorities. White House officials repeatedly rebuked Musk for what they called “anti-semitic rhetoric” on X over the last week.
Several major advertisers including Apple and Disney subsequently paused their spending on X. Musk defended himself on Sunday, without apologizing or rescinding his statements.
You can be verified on Mastodon, too. You just have to put a line of html on a website you control and you are verified by that website. For most of us, that is of limited use. I’m verified by my Github account which is also an anonymous alias (I enjoy my privacy), but having a verified link to whitehouse.gov would be pretty definitive.
I mean, who is going to claim that POTUS@whitehouse.gov or POTUS@mastodon.us.gov would be any other Mastodon user? Presumably any official US government mastodon or lemmy instance wouldn’t allow for public signups.