4 ms·

In crises, officials tweet crucial info. What if Twitter dies?

6 points by perihelions 4y ago

detaro 4y ago
there are these things called "websites". Institutions usually can afford one of those, even in the "doesn't fall over when lots of people want to look" form.
jleyank 4y ago
They can return to RSS, use news sites, use that old TV/Radio stuff from the 20th century, ... There are alternatives to a microblogging service.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Hi, lowly unsophisticated millennial here, what is RSS? (this is something 99% of my peers would say). Also, I don't have TV, I'm a cord "never" as it's called. Radio? The only one I have is in my car.. What station do I need? Anyways, the answer is using those amber alerts on the phone. My local government has sent them for covid lockdowns and even bad weather.
  - jleyank 4y ago
    I assume public services can be injected into streaming services, or at least the larger ones. You know full well what RSS is as you know what Google is. You can find feeds of news services unless they all have given them up. Apple News can also be used - it might not be RSS but iPhone users probably know what that is. And I'm sure there's a Google/Android counterpart. If you wanted to hear or read news, you know how to do that. If not, yeah, you'll be surprised from time to time.
    - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
      That's a real bold assumption. PSA announcements injected into streaming services? Like Netflix, Disney+, HBO whatever? I doubt it and will need a source to change my mind.
      - jleyank 4y ago
        We won't know until we know. If there's any form of licensing of the airways for the streaming platforms or the internet providers that enable access, it'll get used at some point. Perhaps out of the goodness of their hearts, perhaps from fear of not doing it, whatever. Relying on a private message channel for public service messages wasn't a smart idea. It failed when the net failed, while older technology worked.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    Amber Alerts ride on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System To your point, it’s ideal for emergency alerts, with SMS and email fine for less urgent comms.
- prng2021 4y ago
  Lol you have to be joking. This is 2022. No one outside the tech industry knows what RSS feeds are. A large percentage of people don't have TV subscriptions and don't listen to radio.
  - jleyank 4y ago
    I'm talking to the HN community. Those outside "our readership" know what radio/TV is and might or might not know what Twitter et al is. Hell, the non-tech community has lans-line phones from what I've been told, and even watch TV news shows. The HN community has all sorts of ways of learning info. Please don't argue both side of an argument to win a point.
  - simfree 4y ago
    Most Americans aren't using Twitter for news, there are only 77 million active Twitter US users currently[1]. People get news through various publications and outlets that aggregate stories from many sources (AP News, Social Media, Press releases, actual reporting with boots on the ground). A shift in social media sites is a minor inconvenience for reporters. 1 - https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/twitter-statistics https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/twitter-statistics
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      The trouble is, the news industry (including the likes of AP) does kind of use Twitter as a sort of low-latency wire service these days. If a government department tweets, the relevant journalists will likely see that before they see the press release.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
krrw 4y ago
kermatt 4y ago
I get emergency alerts on my phone without joining a mismanaged social media platform run by a sociopath - any of them. If Twitter dies a well deserved death, I expect to miss zero actual news. I suspect people will be exposed to significantly less disinformation.
rsynnott 4y ago
The EU set up a mastodon instance a while back (essentially in a publish-only role; you can't _join_ it or anything): https://social.network.europa.eu/about https://social.network.europa.eu/about At the time this seemed... maybe a bit odd. Now, well, I expect other governments will follow.

6 points by perihelions 4y ago

there are these things called "websites". Institutions usually can afford one of those, even in the "doesn't fall over when lots of people want to look" form.

jleyank 4y ago

They can return to RSS, use news sites, use that old TV/Radio stuff from the 20th century, ... There are alternatives to a microblogging service.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Hi, lowly unsophisticated millennial here, what is RSS? (this is something 99% of my peers would say). Also, I don't have TV, I'm a cord "never" as it's called. Radio? The only one I have is in my car.. What station do I need? Anyways, the answer is using those amber alerts on the phone. My local government has sent them for covid lockdowns and even bad weather.
- jleyank 4y ago
  I assume public services can be injected into streaming services, or at least the larger ones. You know full well what RSS is as you know what Google is. You can find feeds of news services unless they all have given them up. Apple News can also be used - it might not be RSS but iPhone users probably know what that is. And I'm sure there's a Google/Android counterpart. If you wanted to hear or read news, you know how to do that. If not, yeah, you'll be surprised from time to time.
  - MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
    That's a real bold assumption. PSA announcements injected into streaming services? Like Netflix, Disney+, HBO whatever? I doubt it and will need a source to change my mind.
    - jleyank 4y ago
      We won't know until we know. If there's any form of licensing of the airways for the streaming platforms or the internet providers that enable access, it'll get used at some point. Perhaps out of the goodness of their hearts, perhaps from fear of not doing it, whatever. Relying on a private message channel for public service messages wasn't a smart idea. It failed when the net failed, while older technology worked.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  Amber Alerts ride on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System To your point, it’s ideal for emergency alerts, with SMS and email fine for less urgent comms.
prng2021 4y ago
Lol you have to be joking. This is 2022. No one outside the tech industry knows what RSS feeds are. A large percentage of people don't have TV subscriptions and don't listen to radio.
- jleyank 4y ago
  I'm talking to the HN community. Those outside "our readership" know what radio/TV is and might or might not know what Twitter et al is. Hell, the non-tech community has lans-line phones from what I've been told, and even watch TV news shows. The HN community has all sorts of ways of learning info. Please don't argue both side of an argument to win a point.
- simfree 4y ago
  Most Americans aren't using Twitter for news, there are only 77 million active Twitter US users currently[1]. People get news through various publications and outlets that aggregate stories from many sources (AP News, Social Media, Press releases, actual reporting with boots on the ground). A shift in social media sites is a minor inconvenience for reporters. 1 - https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/twitter-statistics https://thesocialshepherd.com/blog/twitter-statistics
  - rsynnott 4y ago
    The trouble is, the news industry (including the likes of AP) does kind of use Twitter as a sort of low-latency wire service these days. If a government department tweets, the relevant journalists will likely see that before they see the press release.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

krrw 4y ago

kermatt 4y ago

I get emergency alerts on my phone without joining a mismanaged social media platform run by a sociopath - any of them. If Twitter dies a well deserved death, I expect to miss zero actual news. I suspect people will be exposed to significantly less disinformation.

rsynnott 4y ago

The EU set up a mastodon instance a while back (essentially in a publish-only role; you can't _join_ it or anything): https://social.network.europa.eu/about https://social.network.europa.eu/about At the time this seemed... maybe a bit odd. Now, well, I expect other governments will follow.