I've been constantly amazed at how normalized it's gotten for not only other companies, but for governments, to rely so much on sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc, for essential information like Amber Alerts. Shit like this hopefully makes people more aware of how treacherous it is to rely on corporate services for public services. Maybe the gov will finally institute their own web services for public information (unlikely) or at least enact boundaries on services that have been widely adopted (slight more likely).
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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The data secure officer of our goverment has build a mastodon server and some official post there. I think more countries should do that. So they don't have to rely on something like Twitter or Facebook. They could do that to reach more people, but with a mastodon instace they could be independent from companies
No one wants to download a government announcement app or go out of their way to check a government website. Twitter worked so well because people already had accounts, it was a widespread platform, and really helped maximize visibility. I don't really blame officials for putting a lot of announcements on Twitter. It was either that or force some kind of app/system alert to get the word out. Yes, right now cell phones get amber alerts and weather warnings, but could you imagine the uproar if every bill vote, every infrastructure project,, every hours change for each relevant government office was beamed straight to every phone? We'd cry out against the invasion of privacy and forced participation. Or worse, if the government ran the primary Twitter-like website to maintain control. We'd call it the protest as if it was the Chinese or North Korean government right at our fingertips. It was an OK solution in my mind until this entire debacle sought to capitalize overnight on a public fuckup
You're right! It would be awful if it was implemented in literally the worst way possible 🙄
C'mon dude. I'm obviously not advocating for 1984 style government announcements forcefed into people's eyeballs. Setting up a government only twitter-esque platform wouldn't be that terrible. Hell, with something like Mastadon or Lemmy, it could integrate easily into what people are already using.
"I don’t really blame officials for putting a lot of announcements on Twitter."
Turn back the calendar a bit, and it was officials giving announcements to be read on the 6:00 news.
And before that, articles being posted in the major newspapers.
And yes, before that, something like town criers.
So yeah, I don't blame them either. The government officials have a purpose, and "building the means for mass communication" isn't it.
Indeed - the government should go where the people are, not force them to use some dedicated governmental outlet. Of course, they should be using as many outlets as possible, including their own (for verification if nothing else). Just as announcements go to every major news outlet, they should use as many as possible today. And many do.
Indeed - the government should go where the people are, not force them to use some dedicated governmental outlet. Of course, they should be using as many outlets as possible, including their own (for verification if nothing else). Just as announcements go to every major news outlet, they should use as many as possible today. And many do.
But don't you know? They're private companies, you can dictate what they can do! They need to make money! Profits! Responsibility to shareholders! Fuck anything else!
Not sure about what carrier you use or what device you use, but I'm on AT&T using a Pixel 6a with CalyxOS, which is just de-googled Android, and on Android if you accidentally swipe away an amber alert notification you can find it again by going to:
Settings -> Safety & emergency -> Wireless emergency alerts -> Emergency alert history
But your point still stands, governments and public institutions really need to stop relying on privately owned and operated social media platforms for posting stuff like this. If they want to use a social platform to publish alerts, they would be much better off standing up their own Mastodon instance that is "just" for those alerts. People could follow those accounts if they want, and those institutions wouldn't be subject to the whims of overpaid unpredictable man children.
Good info, just wanted to add on with instructions for both major mobile platforms. Depending on your specific device and version, there may be some slight differences in how the menu options are worded and you might need to expand a collapsed section in the menu to see the settings.
Thanks for the tip, I found it in my notification history.
In my jurisdiction, Amber Alerts are delivered by SMS. Using Twitter for police notifications seems bizarre.
In my area, amber alerts are delivered via Localized Emergency Alerts, and clicking on it takes you to the Highway Patrol Twitter page.
That's crazy.
I was going to say it's crazy that your local police use a private service like Twitter, but I guess the phone companies are a private service too.
Phone services are required to put out the message though, just like you're able to dial 911 from a phone even if you don't have service (if you're in a covered area).
Twitter is not required.
Yeah, but you're right in that phone companies are a public utility, so the government has more say in what they can do.
It does come as a notification, and I ended up finding it in my notification history.
This is why governments should stop relying on private companies and start setting up their own fediverse servers which they will have full control over.
I didn't even consider the fact that the fediverse offers us the ability to start having publicly owned social media and government-run instances for direct communication.
That could be very interesting...
Most governments struggle to manage a website, much less a fediverse instance. It’s a good idea though.
But at least instead of coding their own awesome website, they just have to spin up an instance using someone else's code....
Yeah okay fine. I can see many ways one can mess this up.
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I noticed I couldn't see tweets my friend would send me without creating an account, guess I won't be seeing any more tweets.
Twitter's super power was in being a public commons. Now that all tweets are effectively locked behind a login, it's lost that power.
Agencies that built around that openness: “How could our reliance on a private entity have backfired on us like this?”
Also those same agencies: “Does anyone know a free private company we can build upon now?”
"Lost your child? Sign in to receive updates about the search!"
(After signing in)
"You've seen too many updates. Watch an ad or subscribe to Blue to keep receiving information on your lost child."
"No chance of finding your child? Check out these great deals on dolls at Amazon.com."
What the fuck they use twitter for THAT?!
According to a twitter engineer this is temporary Source: https://twitter.com/AqueelMiq/status/1674843555486134272
Yeah... not happening.
It's hilarious that I tried to click that link, despite not having a Twitter account.
Just curious, have you ever found anything mentioned in an amber alert?
Nope. But one time I saw the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile, and I had never seen it before. So it's possible. I end up driving 2 1/2 hours per day, so anything to make things more interesting.
I saw a 1989 batmobile zip past me once, that shit was cool
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sucks they are using twitter but check out nitter: https://nitter.net/about
I definitely use nitter if I'm posting a Twitter link. But I'm probably too lazy to use it when I'm just clicking someone else's link.
Holy shit, thank you... You just made something click for me.
If I replace Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, NYT, and all those other annoying links in just two places, I'll never have to see that crap again. I'm always clicking on interesting posts thoughtlessly just to be hit by a loginwall/paywall... It's not that big a deal, but it would make my life like 2% more pleasant
I already am doing something for Lemmy links because they've been driving me nuts, compared to checking 1000 links, adding a few more will be easy
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This change also blocks nitter since it relies on being able to access Twitter as a non-logged-in user. More info on their GitHub: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/issues/919
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Nitter seems to be broken because of those twitter changes :/
Nitter won't work with new posts as it has started scraping from the web interface - which now requires an account.
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