Feature: Add support for new social media URLs (TikTok, Bluesky, Mastodon, Threads, etc) to database and UI

[fancyham]

Context

A lot of organizations and people are leaving x.com (née twitter.com) for other social media platforms: bluesky, TikTok, threads, mastodon, etc.

We should start supporting these social media URLs on our website and in our database

How is it now?

We have a limited number of social media links, with specific services.

New version of this feature

Data entry UI:

See https://m2.material.io/components/lists#behavior for “re-ordering a list” pattern

Validate that the URLs are actually valid HTML URLs, starting with http:// or https://

(Some users will probably enter things like @taylorswift or @orgname.bsky.com — neither of which are valid URLs.), so we want to warn and reject those

Org Listing Display

Display the social media links in order on the org detail screen.

Get required social media SVGs from: https://nucleoapp.com/social-media-icons for free SVG versions

New social media networks we want to support at this moment are:

• TikTok
• Mastodon
• Bluesky
• Threads
• There will surely be more in the future

If we don't yet support a social media network, default to displaying a generic website icon for the URL

Action items

• First, think about how to add additional URLs to other social networks we should add. Organizations may be using BlueSky, Threads, and unknown new social media platforms etc.
• If no changes needed now, revisit this again periodically (suggest every 6 months) : We need to do this — Twitter is turning into a toxic network and orgs are scambling to move elsewhere
• Designs
• Programming and testing
  • Expose URLs, with their new icons, on the organization’s listing on the public site.

Discussion

We might want an array of social media links, rather than a single column in the database. We might recognize the major ones and expose dedicated fields for them, but for others, we might just have a list.

This list could be a multiline text field, but a sortable list would be nicer

We should still check that the URLs are valid… MVP is testing that the they're actually valid HTTP URLs… but if there are additional official validators from the social media networks themselves, then that would be very nice to use. This can be broken out into a separate issue… I imagine it become quite a large effort..

Also, we don’t currently support TikTok but it’s quite popular, though perhaps not for food pantries(?)

I am unsure of how many, if any, have moved to Threads or Mastodon.

Service providers will typically go where their clients and audience are, so BSky, Mastodon and Threads may not be popular enough yet (2025-02)… but at this very moment, a lot of orgs are moving from X.com to other places like BlueSky.

Social media networks will rise and fall. Do any organizations actually use Pinterest, for example? We can continue to support, but if doing URL validation gets onerous, consider depreciating certain networks.

Long term: Think about how we might store these. I suggest a stack of arbitrary URL fields rather than the individual slots for a specific set of social media platforms that we have now.

Consider: How do other services / sites enter and store this info?

References: