Is this really a recommendation for using more internal collaborative tools?

Social media platforms aren't really tuned to "closed" groups. Some might say that's antithetical to the concept of social media altogether!

In order to mature for nonproprietary business-quality usage, social media services must implement an open standard like Strategy Markup Language (StratML) ... so that the focus is on achieving public objectives rather than merely socializing for its own sake.

I agree that Uncle Sam should not reinvent such services, but if they fail to address this requirement of their own volition, steps should be taken to encourage them to do so.

Most social media sites do not meet the accessibility requirements of Section 508. For instance, many agencies post info both on Facebook and their own web site. The content on the agency site "should" be 508-compliant but the dialogue on FB is not replicated there so the experience of a user who can only use the agency site is not comparable - they've been excluded from the conversation. If public social media apps met the government's accessibility/privacy/security needs they'd be more attractive.

Since "social media" sites exist at the whim or profitability of their owners and developers they are simply too unreliable to present content that may or may not be mandated by law or that must meet specific criteria for users and deployers. Just yesterday Facebook completely changed my interface with no warning and no input from me, really creating a mess of what used to be somewhat organized. Furthermore do we really want users of gov web content to be part of a highly hackable data mine for who knows who? I don't have a major problem with referencing content on FB, or YouTube, but I reject the implication that it can replace or replicate dedicated web content on gov sites. This would be a terrible model.

The fact is that almost all major Federal agencies are already on social websites, like Facebook. Even though the user interface changes, the usefulness of the system remains fundamentally as a collaboration/communication platform. If some go away, there are always new ones to take their place. I just don't want the government wasting their time and resources trying to replicate their own sites, when we should be communicating with our customers using their preferred systems.

I think this thread needs some clarification. I believe you're saying, govt sites should provide some information on social media that they don't provide anywhere else (because it's not worth the time and effort). Am I understanding correctly?

Government usage of social media sites should comply with the Federal Records Act.

If the comment means that gov't should use social media internally, that's already happening in many agencies.

externally, happening also, but cultural transformation needed. Management is too fearful that a worker would say the wrong thing.

If the suggestion is to stay out of the social media business and use what's available I agree. That's where the conversations are happening anyway, better to be there and interacting than to try and entice folks over to a new platform.