Why is there a blurred line between strategic and operational?

In principle the distinction between the responsibilities of Board members and the executive are clear. The Board does the strategic stuff, and the executive rolls up its sleeves and gets on with the ‘doing’.

However in practice there is plenty of overlap between the two sets of responsibilities. Part of the responsibility and skill of a mature board is understanding where discussions start stepping over that line, out of the strategic space and into the operational zone.

In the brief example above, you can see that some aspects of organisational function, such as managing risk, are common to both strategic and operational activity. Managing those boundaries is important to ensure that all participants are able to play their designated roles correctly.

A Board that strays too far into operational decision-making risks disempowering the executive and making decisions despite being removed from the day-to-day running of the organisation. Likewise an executive that is too directive of the Board risks insufficient scrutiny, potentially masking problems that can erupt with great force later down the line.

Communications is not normally something that a Board would consider. It is one of the functions of an organisation that tends to continue without too much scrutiny, unless it’s a time of crisis, or if communications itself has started to become an issue that demands strategic attention.

Social media itself is a sub-set of communications. So why should the Board get involved?

Why do I think social media should be a Board issue in Wales?

I used to be Head of Digital at RenewableUK; in 2017 I designed and implemented a digital strategy (that I also open-sourced). I’ve published a number of articles about why people should quit Twitter (and other privately owned communication platforms) for more ethical alternatives. I’ve had meetings with large public bodies in Wales, and presented for specialist communications groups, on why it’s become ethically compelling to explore alternatives. And I’ve had close to zero success.

My focus is on the public sector because their duties under the Well-being of Future Generations Act are very clear. They have to support delivery of the Well-being Goals. And they have to use the five Ways of Working. However the problems with mainstream social media platforms raise issues that bear consideration for third and private sector organisations too.

The current use of social media by public sector organisations in Wales doesn’t align with the Future Generations Act. That’s a strategic issue.

X; all that’s wrong in social media

The change in ownership, and then changes to moderation and to the algorithms that govern what content is boosted, within Twitter (now X), has meant that views that are antithetical to the Well-being Goals and Ways of Working are promoted, and those that promote well-being are less visible.

The Guardian cited the toxicity of the platform as one of the reasons why it would no longer post there. The ‘i’ paper has called on media organisations to leave. In 2023 the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICW) became the first publicly-funded body in Wales to set out reasons for leaving the platform.

I believe that organisations that use X to broadcast messages about information in Wales, are implicitly condoning digital toxicity by providing their content for free that supports a business model predicated on generating outrage and sewing division.

Whilst X highlights what happens when social media platforms deliberately seek to cause harm, there are systemic philosophical issues of concern for all mainstream social media platforms for public bodies in Wales.

All the mainstream social media platforms (such as Instagram, Facebook, NextDoor and LinkedIn) are owned outside Wales. The owners are not held to account by the Welsh Parliament, or the UK Parliament. They keep the vast majority of their profits outside Wales. They harvest the data of Welsh citizens and sell it to thousands of global companies interested in knowing our innermost preferences. Why should the citizens of Wales be required to accept terms of use of these predatory digital service companies in order to access information from public bodies?

I previously wrote that Wales’ democracy itself is at stake if we continue to use the mainstream social media platforms without considering how the medium itself shapes the message. I still believe that this is the case. The discussions taking place about huge donations to political parties from overseas should concern us all. Our only immunisation, in the face of a complete acquiescence from the Electoral Commission and UK Government, is to use platforms that cannot share paid-for information of any type, and that have as part of their terms of use moderation of misinformation.

The Future Generations Goals

Public bodies have an obligation to help support the Future Generations Goals. Continuing to use X (and the other mainstream social media platforms) actively works against the Future Generations Goals. I’m going to use X – probably the most egregious example – to highlight the differences between X and an ethical alternative.

As a huge fan of open source software I have been a champion for Mastodon (sort of an ethical version of X) since 2018. I am a moderator for the Welsh Mastodon community (toot.wales). Declaration of interest – I also offer training for organisations on how to get started fast on Mastodon. 

Here’s a list of the differences between X and Mastodon that should form part of a discussion at Board level of all public bodies in Wales about social media.

Future Generations Goal	Mastodon (toot.wales)	X
A prosperous Wales	Set up to serve the people of Wales	Content is provided for free by Welsh public bodies and citizens, for a commercial US-based entity that provides almost zero financial benefit to Wales
A resilient Wales	Supports social resilience	Business model depends on advertising, indirectly causing harm to the environment. Hauses harm to social resilience
A healthier Wales	Mastodon has no profit motive, and no motive to keep attention on the screen	Business model predicated on ‘keeping eyeballs on the screen’ (the attention economy), increasing the risk to mental health
A more equal Wales	Voices have equal weight; algorithms do not have bias towards topics or groups.	Implicitly unequal as the algorithms promote certain voices above others
A Wales of cohesive communities	“No discrimination against family status, gender, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, language, age, ability, race, ethnicity, caste, national origin, socioeconomic status, religion, geographic location, or any other dimension of diversity.”	Business model predicated on generating outrage and failing to tackle the spread of misinformation
A Wales of vibrant culture and thriving Welsh language	Fully bilingual platform; Welsh language celebrated and encouraged	Welsh not supported
A globally responsible Wales	Contributes to global well-being by being part of an ethical global network	Has a negative impact on global well-being

My thesis is that the values of public bodies in Wales, as partly defined under the Future Generations Act are no longer consistent with using X as a communication platform, and more generally are not consistent with the use of mainstream social media platforms.

I was delighted to see that the Centre for Digital Public Services left X in September 2024. They have not – yet – created a Mastodon account; hopefully that’s their next step! However that leaves the vast majority of public bodies in Wales still active on Twitter.

Call to action

My call to action in this post is for public bodies (and ideally third sector and private organisations) to understand the corrosive nature of mainstream social media platforms on Welsh society, and to strategically manage communication platforms for the good of the people of Wales.

As Marshall McLuhan said in 1964:

“The media are extensions of our senses; as they change, they utterly transform our environment and affect everything we do, they “massage” or reshape us. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered.”

Public bodies in Wales have a responsibility to shape how society functions. By ceding control of the medium, they have abrogated their responsibility, and are failing in their duties under the Well-being of Future Generations Act.

Alternatives to mainstream social media platforms

Although this blog post features X, there exist ethical alternatives for most mainstream social media platforms (except LinkedIn).

Mainstream platform	Ethical alternative
X	Mastodon
Instagram	Pixelfed
TikTok	Loops

Each of these alternatives are more aligned with Welsh legislation and therefore more aligned with a values-based, long-term and strategic approach to communication.

What about Bluesky?

Many of the people migrating from X have joined Bluesky, with the general feedback being that it is like Twitter in the ‘old days’.

Firstly, if your organisation has left X, congratulations. However, for organisations in Wales, moving to a platform owned by another US-based organisation is not a huge win; more of a sideways step. Bluesky will face huge pressures to generate revenue on behalf of investors, and may come to see issues arise that conflict with a Future Generations approach.

Here’s a long read describing why Bluesky may not be the social media nirvana some people are hoping for.

Recommendations for Boards in Wales

Work with the executive to develop a values-based approach to the use of social media that properly integrates the Future Generations Goals and Ways of Working. Use the Centre for Digital Public Services or NICW as examples of other public bodies in Wales that have made this choice.

If the outcome of this process suggests a change from ‘business as usual’:

1. Adopt an ethical communication platform for every ‘conventional’ one being used by the organisation
2. Give notice of intention to reduce activity on, or retire from, existing social media channels, with an explanation linked to the organisational values

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Picture credit: Mariia Shalabaieva

This blog post is the personal opinion of David Clubb.