If algorithms are are not the default option and are not designed to generate profit for platforms and advertisers, then perhaps they could be a healthy way to discover new content

Every social network uses algorithms to show you content. Even mastodon

I mean I know this is painfully pedantic but even simply sorting by new is algorithmic

Hopefully it spreads throughout the German government

Six:
Baden-Würtemberg
So, 37.5% of all states. Still wondering why it takes so long for the other ones to move or at least open an account on mastodon.

There are also some accounts for state governments, but it seems only three so far:

Baden-Würtemberg
Schleswig-Holstein
Hessen

This is great to see. Honestly I think software that governments invest into should be exclusively open source. It is paid for by the public's money after all, so it should be offered back to the public.

Unlike Twitter, hashtags don't perform a global search, they only perform a local search on the content that people have pulled into your instance via subscriptions; this is a downside of it's federated nature. So what you are finding out is essentially that people on your instance don't share your interests.

If you want to improve your feed, you should look for instances where people who are interested in the same kinds of things as you congregate, and subscribe to the people there who interest you. If you find an instance whose community really clicks with you, you might consider switching to it, and then the hashtags will work better for you.

In general, it helps to model the fediverse as being not one community but a big community made up of a bunch of smaller communities that all talk to each other, so it's more like a Twitter alternative than a Twitter replacement (even though it is sometimes sold as the later rather than the former). Personally, I find Mastodon to be infinitely better than Twitter, but that's just because I personally never used Twitter due to lack of interest so I don't have a basis for comparison. :-)

You have to build your own algorithm. I follow a lot of artists who have moved over. You can also search the handle of a lot of larger Twitter channels - there's a bot that pulls content over from them in some cases.

It takes time. Twitter (or whatever it wants to be called) has an algorithm expressly aimed at keeping you "engaged", whereas Mastodon is just a stream of toots which you see based on the time you decide to visit. Should you stick with it, eventually two things will happen:

1. You will find accounts and topic to follow which will fill your timeline with content that is relevant and interesting to you, and, perhaps more importantly
2. Your mind will give up the habit of being hooked on a social media stream (apologies if I'm implying something that isn't true for you - it certainly was for me).

In the end, maybe you decide it's not for you, but I've been using it for years (since 2017), and over time it's completely replaced Twitter for me. I'm keeping three accounts for different interests (and one on Pixelfed), logged into all of them using Fedilab. I actually deleted my Twitter account the day the Tucker/Tate interview hit the light of day, but I stopped actively visiting it years earlier. My mental state improved a lot over time since I moved on.

I don’t follow people yet but only subjects (#).

There's your problem. Find interesting people to follow in the # you are already following.

Also, Mastodon is fairly popular among countries where English isn't the most common language. Not sure why tbh.

The more important thing: anyone can see their posts now. This is rather crucial for a government institution's feed and not true on Twitter anymore.

A dozen today, 13 tomorrow, eventually more people will know about it and join. You don't have to go that far back for governments having any social media presence at all being a very weird thing.

They already have 1.6k followers.

As of now, accounts of their instance have thousands of followers.

The Dutch government also launched their own mastodon instance recently at social.overheid.nl. Several government departments have already joined. I hope politicians will also make the move, although I do not know if this specific instance allows for accounts other than those of government departments.

When you make public announcements as a politician or political party, it should be done via a channel that can be accessed without registration!

Thats translation is actually perfectly fine