The server is now live and in use at social.overheid.nl
The official announcement post by the State Secretary of Digitalisation: https://social.overheid.nl/@avhuffelen/110700825255524685
In the post she mentions that the government supports ‘value-driven’ alternatives to social media. In a letter to the house of representatives she describes Mastodon as a Digital Common Good, and that it fits in the larger strategy of the government of using ‘open source, unless’ (meaning theyll always use open source unless there is a clear explicit reason not to).
One thing to keep in mind is that this Mastodon instance is purely used by the government to speak officially. It is not a platform where regular folks can create new posts (they can still comment on and like posts made by the government).
They are basically removing their dependency on Twitter as a platform for sharing information to the public.
Ooooh ok, got it. Thank you very much for explaining !