@zoneghost would you not avoid most of their issues by owning an instance for your own accounts but don't let anyone join. It's just essentially a verified badge.

Flipboard.social, I'm pretty sure is just official sources or their own journalists. The Netherlands has their official government offices' accounts on their own instance as well.

You don't need users in your instance to host and let others follow. Then you avoid costs from server storage, accountability for what your users say, etc

@zoneghost Largely agree. The legal worries are particularly acute here in Britain where it is much easier to sue someone for libel/defamation.

On storage, do any other Mastodon servers have users contrbuting to the costs?