GSA has launched a new tool called the Social Media Registry. Users in the federal government can submit their official social media accounts and officially register them with GSA. Users that are trying to understand whether a social media account is actually an official account owned by a federal government agency, can submit the URL to the account and receive instant verification.
This will increase trust both in reusing content (for example retweeting or sharing links), but also increases transparency and confidence in the use of social media by government.
Disclaimer: My research assistant Lindsey Tepe and I have helped during the last few month to detect accounts, code them by a set of categories that will help government understand for what kind of content and interactions the social media accounts are used.
As of April 2012, a total of 699 organizational units (including initiatives, teams, and individual senior officials’ accounts) have created 2,956 Facebook accounts, 1,016 Twitter accounts, 695 YouTube channels, and 498 Flickr accounts:
