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Well for now I don't bother having Twitter open on my laptop just in case my government would want to tell me something, so I don't see how this would be much d

Well for now I don't bother having Twitter open on my laptop just in case my government would want to tell me something, so I don't see how this would be much different. The main difference I see though is that since Mastodon provides RSS feeds, I could at least follow the feed of my country's emergency services without needing a specialised app.

ghaff 3y ago
RSS feeds are definitely an alternative but now you've covered ~1% (if that) of the population. I used to be an avid RSS consumer and even I don't really use it much any longer.
- seszett 3y ago
  Apparently Twitter is used by 11% of the population here in Belgium, so that's certainly better but... how many of those follow accounts of the government? I suspect it's very low and most people probably don't even know all the levels that might potentially emit emergency warnings. I know I don't. Given the general trust in American corporations, it's not absurd to think some of the 89% of the population that doesn't use Twitter would be more willing to install an application to follow official communication on Mastodon than to use Twitter. Anyway warnings are just broadcast on the mobile network here, which works fine.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yeah. Mobile phone alerts are probably about the best you can do these days beyond going house to house (and even then). You're never going to get to 100%. But, as you suggest, Twitter isn't even a particularly good channel. I use Twitter and I have no idea what my local government channels are, if any.
  - amrocha 3y ago
    Even if you don't use it, you can check it during an emergency. Even if you don't check it, someone else else was checking it and relaying that information to you. You used to be able to search an account on an app you already have, and get the latest information. Now governments have to manage their own instances, you have to search their website, find the url, subscribe to it or download a custom app, and then you can finally see what used to be a search away from you. That can only be described as a loss.
    - seszett 3y ago
      I can't get used to either Twitter or the fediverse, but they don't work differently on the discoverabilty aspect. One would likely just subscribe to your city's hashtag for large cities or to your town hall's account for small ones, and that's all. The rest works like Twitter (except there is less risk of important posts getting invisibilised by the feed algorithm). In my fediverse test, I just subscribed to #Antwerpen (as well as #Antwerp and #Anvers but that's a whole other problem...) and I did get relevant and interesting posts. In their small town my parents are subscribed to the town hall's Facebook account (the only reason they signed up to Facebook) and it would work the same on any other app, except it likely would spy on them a bit less. Mastodon's Android app is not a "more custom" app than Twitter or Facebook's apps are, on the contrary I would argue. I just can't get used to checking this thing more than once every few days and like Twitter it just doesn't work if you're not constantly reading your feed, because then you're missing most posts.
0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
At least there would be a central location. You would always know you could go there to learn more about government affairs. There should also be nothing preventing someone from mirroring GovTwitter to Twitter/Threads/Mastadon where the people are.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >At least there would be a central location It's called a website.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    Whose website? Does my local city have one? Do they have the IT resources to ensure it is hosted? Do they know how to get a .gov domain? What about state news? Lot of friction and multiple potential locations vs a Federally run resource.
    - kodah 3y ago
      Yes, all of this stuff had normalized processes before Twitter emerged from SXSW.
    - addaon 3y ago
      > Does my local city have one? It's hard to answer this question without knowing your local city. My town of < 5000 people has the appropriate .gov site set up and maintained; it's one of the responsibilities of the local government. I'd imagine that any local government structure large enough to have evacuation plans in place is also large enough to have a website to communicate those plans on...
      - ghaff 3y ago
        I live in about a 7,000 person town and they have a website as, I assume, most if not all of the towns in the state do. I don't know how good they are with emergency notifications on the site but then we don't have a lot of emergencies requiring notification.

ghaff 3y ago

RSS feeds are definitely an alternative but now you've covered ~1% (if that) of the population. I used to be an avid RSS consumer and even I don't really use it much any longer.

seszett 3y ago
Apparently Twitter is used by 11% of the population here in Belgium, so that's certainly better but... how many of those follow accounts of the government? I suspect it's very low and most people probably don't even know all the levels that might potentially emit emergency warnings. I know I don't. Given the general trust in American corporations, it's not absurd to think some of the 89% of the population that doesn't use Twitter would be more willing to install an application to follow official communication on Mastodon than to use Twitter. Anyway warnings are just broadcast on the mobile network here, which works fine.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Yeah. Mobile phone alerts are probably about the best you can do these days beyond going house to house (and even then). You're never going to get to 100%. But, as you suggest, Twitter isn't even a particularly good channel. I use Twitter and I have no idea what my local government channels are, if any.
- amrocha 3y ago
  Even if you don't use it, you can check it during an emergency. Even if you don't check it, someone else else was checking it and relaying that information to you. You used to be able to search an account on an app you already have, and get the latest information. Now governments have to manage their own instances, you have to search their website, find the url, subscribe to it or download a custom app, and then you can finally see what used to be a search away from you. That can only be described as a loss.
  - seszett 3y ago
    I can't get used to either Twitter or the fediverse, but they don't work differently on the discoverabilty aspect. One would likely just subscribe to your city's hashtag for large cities or to your town hall's account for small ones, and that's all. The rest works like Twitter (except there is less risk of important posts getting invisibilised by the feed algorithm). In my fediverse test, I just subscribed to #Antwerpen (as well as #Antwerp and #Anvers but that's a whole other problem...) and I did get relevant and interesting posts. In their small town my parents are subscribed to the town hall's Facebook account (the only reason they signed up to Facebook) and it would work the same on any other app, except it likely would spy on them a bit less. Mastodon's Android app is not a "more custom" app than Twitter or Facebook's apps are, on the contrary I would argue. I just can't get used to checking this thing more than once every few days and like Twitter it just doesn't work if you're not constantly reading your feed, because then you're missing most posts.

0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago

At least there would be a central location. You would always know you could go there to learn more about government affairs. There should also be nothing preventing someone from mirroring GovTwitter to Twitter/Threads/Mastadon where the people are.

ghaff 3y ago
>At least there would be a central location It's called a website.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  Whose website? Does my local city have one? Do they have the IT resources to ensure it is hosted? Do they know how to get a .gov domain? What about state news? Lot of friction and multiple potential locations vs a Federally run resource.
  - kodah 3y ago
    Yes, all of this stuff had normalized processes before Twitter emerged from SXSW.
  - addaon 3y ago
    > Does my local city have one? It's hard to answer this question without knowing your local city. My town of < 5000 people has the appropriate .gov site set up and maintained; it's one of the responsibilities of the local government. I'd imagine that any local government structure large enough to have evacuation plans in place is also large enough to have a website to communicate those plans on...
    - ghaff 3y ago
      I live in about a 7,000 person town and they have a website as, I assume, most if not all of the towns in the state do. I don't know how good they are with emergency notifications on the site but then we don't have a lot of emergencies requiring notification.