The official way to chat with the European Union is with.... Facebook

[atro_city@fedia.io]

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[atro_city@fedia.io]

On Contact the European Union page, it links to the EU's facebook page.

Just what are they doing...

[federalreverse@feddit.org]

That's horrible and a conflict of interest too but also totally normal, as almost every single public institution is on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp,...

[sp3ctre@feddit.org]

Thats's embarrassing.

[admax@lemmy.world]

Yes it's a shame and I wish it was done another way, but also what alternative do they have ?

I'm gonna be the devil's advocate here and say that if your goal is to have people reach out, you want to make it as painless as posible . The majority of the population has or had a facebook / messenger account making the process to start a chat a simple as a click in most cases.
If people had to download a thrid party app or register on yet another plateform, they would probably not start a new chat.

With the recent events this makes it even more urgent to move away from meta products, but the EU being as big as it is, this will take some time…

[smitty053@lemmy.world]

….email?

[federalreverse@feddit.org]

I've never used Facebook Messenger. I do realize that FB Messenger not being properly encrypted does have advantages in terms of managing the account with multiple agents however. That might be a lot harder to replicate with Signal.

[hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz]

Snail mail?

[kissaki@feddit.org]

It's one of several contact alternatives.

The cropped screenshot and "the official way" is entirely misleading.

[idegenszavak@sh.itjust.works]

On the linked page there is a contact form with an input box for email address, so I guess if you contact them via the form they will reply in email.

FB is the only option if you want to chat in a written form. The third option is a phone number you can call.

[atro_city@fedia.io]

It's not. It how you chat with them, as in live chat. Email or a contact form is not a live chat.

I also literally have a comment with the link to the page.

[admax@lemmy.world]

The image email has is the one if an old school slugish administration, probably the one physical mails had when emails came around.

When I send an email to anyone, be it a company or an individual, I expec a reply in the next few days. But in chat I'm expecting a reply in a couple of hours.
So i'd be much more inclined to a conversation via chat given the option.

Also I'm not certain my experience with younger people and email is representative, but from what I've seen younger generations are not the most at ease with email.

I think what's lacking here is the choice.
Messenger is more appealing to a vast amount of people, but to some it might be the opposite, and those people need an lternative.

[austrianpostalcorrespondent@social.vivaldi.net]

@federalreverse @Admax
As a matter of fact, Meta is implementing end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger - much to my displeasure because I couldn't get it working in any of my browsers and thus couldn't read my messages since Christmas. Never mind, Facebook doesn't let me sign into my Facebook account anymore anways and keeps sending me in circles to solve the problem.

[idegenszavak@sh.itjust.works]

In a lot of countries whatsapp is the defacto IM, but I live in a country where facebook messenger and viber became the standard for some reason.
I guess they measured how much citizen they can reah on eaxch platform and selected messenger based on that data.

This is not for MEPs to message each other, not the recommendation by the Comission, this site is for ordinary citizens to get information. I think the biggest problem is why only facebook messenger?I would expect other similar platforms there, like whatsapp, viber, telegram or imessage.

[admax@lemmy.world]

Thank you for added context !
As long as there are alternatives to Messenger chat i think it's okay to have it.

[federalreverse@feddit.org]

Facebook and Google no longer hassling me trying to log in despite a good long password after moving to a new home, thus being on a different network in a different city helped me rethink my dependence on both of those services. Google presented me with a questionnaire that was just weird, with question like "what month of what year did you open your account?" (how would I know, the account had existed since 2005?) and then following up with a question what city I was in when I opened the account (again, how would I know?). With Facebook, I noticed there was absolutely no way to log in from another country without already having installed the app, it didn't even help to add my phone number to the account.

[gork@lemm.ee]

"Hi, is this Europe?"

[austrianpostalcorrespondent@social.vivaldi.net]

@federalreverse
Google never pestered me although occasionally, I have to confirm my e-mail address for account recovery.
My problems with Facebook started when I changed my Internet provided and grew when I changed my e-amail address. No longer being able to log in to my facebook account is no big loss - only used it to keep in touch with a handful of friends abroad, anyways. The trouble is that of some I don't have up-to-date e-mail addresses.

[lemmchen@feddit.org]

No, this is Patrick!

[nudenewt@lemm.ee]

God. Damn. Boomers.