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Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary walled-garden online platforms? Those are for purposes like celebrity publicists, influencer brand

by neilv 3y ago

Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary walled-garden online platforms? Those are for purposes like celebrity publicists, influencer brand promotion, disreputable mob behavior, and astroturfing. The SEC doesn't need brand promotion, nor to be caught up in nastiness like pervades X/Twitter. The SEC already has the authority, they do their job with it, and presumably they value respectability. Earlier Web showed us how to do this right, before commercial entities steered the influx of the newbie masses back towards being captive to proprietary walled gardens. Stop choosing proprietary walled gardens to endorse with the government seal of approval. Put press releases on your .gov open-systems Web site. Optionally do supplementary alerts with an open-systems email announcements list and/or Atom feed. Let journalists, citizens, and lawmakers take it from there.

JoshTriplett 3y ago
There is value in government agencies engaging with people where they are. Even the SEC gets some value out of promoting their activities, even if it's just awareness of their existence and function and corresponding public support. That said, now that the Fediverse exists, ideally all of those government agencies would self-host their accounts, either individually or via a server for many different agencies of the same government. It makes sense for the SEC to be @sec@sec.gov or @sec@usa.gov rather than example.com/SECGov . (Which, of course, does not prevent them from having security issues.)
- shp0ngle 3y ago
  SEC cannot run their own twitter account without being hacked, what makes you think they can securely run their own Mastodon instance?
  - JoshTriplett 3y ago
    I wouldn't expect the SEC to run it, I'd expect one of the government agencies responsible for IT infrastructure to run it.
  - cosmojg 3y ago
    The people who would be responsible for hosting such a Mastodon instance would likely be at least a bit more technically competent than those paid to post on Twitter.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Maybe the security problem is at Twitter.
sokoloff 3y ago
While your point is perhaps valid for publishing information, it doesn’t (for me) extend to not even having an account. Companies have cited that their Twitter account is an official source of company comms and that gives the SEC a reason to have an account and access that information as part of enforcing securities laws.
- neilv 3y ago
  Good point. I should've said "presences" rather than "accounts".
krapp 3y ago
>Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary walled-garden online platforms? That's for purposes like celebrity publicists, influencer brand promotion, disreputable mob behavior, and astroturfing. You're describing some of the behaviors that occur on those platforms, not their purpose. Governments have accounts on those platforms because it makes communicating with their constituents easier, because that's where the people are. It would be grossly irresponsible in this day and age for a government not to have any social media presence at all.
lowercased 3y ago
Should agencies never have published information to privately owned corporate newspapers? After all, you could just tell people they need to mosey down to city hall (or whatever govt agency) to look at the notice board for all the official topical information.
- neilv 3y ago
  The government agency issues a press release, then the newspaper journalist writes an article based on that and other information.
  - mewpmewp2 3y ago
    Then it will take more time and not everyone reads newspapers.
wslh 3y ago
My two cents: they should cryptographically sign their messages in other platforms. There is enough length in Twitter now. I think the SEC is really responsible for not protecting investors in this case.
- zikduruqe 3y ago
  >they should cryptographically sign their messages in other platforms Like a Nostr account?
  - wslh 3y ago
    Could Nostr now use Twitter/X or any other transport as an alternative?
- pants2 3y ago
  The SEC didn't even have 2FA set up on their account. One can hardly expect them to sign their messages.
bongodongobob 3y ago
Agreed. I don't see why they need to do interviews on the new fandangled television and radio programs either. If you want to learn about what the government is doing, pick up a newspaper or speak to your senator on congressman over the telephone line.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Honestly you should pay the respect and invite them over to discuss things over a few beers. Telephone lines, government agencies should have no need for.
redcobra762 3y ago
There was a time when Twitter did generally seem to be a decent steward of public discourse, and many groups wanted to participate in the conversation. Ironically, that time ended around Oct. 2022.
- NelsonMinar 3y ago
  Twitter under Musk is absolutely not suitable for government communications.
wolverine876 3y ago
I've wondered that too, but government agencies have long bought ads in media, used the phone system, telegrams, etc. etc.
nashashmi 3y ago
It is a good point. Better for SEC/agency to setup an sec.gov/x page that x.com/secgov would replicate. That works well until sec.gov/x gets hacked.
ndriscoll 3y ago
They do post their press releases on their .gov website, and they do have RSS feeds: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases https://www.sec.gov/about/sec-rss https://www.sec.gov/about/sec-rss It looks like their tweets just link to their press releases on their website, though they're in random order for me and I can't see whether they have any replies or whatever, so I could be missing something.

by neilv 3y ago

JoshTriplett 3y ago

There is value in government agencies engaging with people where they are. Even the SEC gets some value out of promoting their activities, even if it's just awareness of their existence and function and corresponding public support. That said, now that the Fediverse exists, ideally all of those government agencies would self-host their accounts, either individually or via a server for many different agencies of the same government. It makes sense for the SEC to be @sec@sec.gov or @sec@usa.gov rather than example.com/SECGov . (Which, of course, does not prevent them from having security issues.)

shp0ngle 3y ago
SEC cannot run their own twitter account without being hacked, what makes you think they can securely run their own Mastodon instance?
- JoshTriplett 3y ago
  I wouldn't expect the SEC to run it, I'd expect one of the government agencies responsible for IT infrastructure to run it.
- cosmojg 3y ago
  The people who would be responsible for hosting such a Mastodon instance would likely be at least a bit more technically competent than those paid to post on Twitter.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Maybe the security problem is at Twitter.

sokoloff 3y ago

While your point is perhaps valid for publishing information, it doesn’t (for me) extend to not even having an account. Companies have cited that their Twitter account is an official source of company comms and that gives the SEC a reason to have an account and access that information as part of enforcing securities laws.

neilv 3y ago
Good point. I should've said "presences" rather than "accounts".

krapp 3y ago

>Why do government agencies even have accounts on proprietary walled-garden online platforms? That's for purposes like celebrity publicists, influencer brand promotion, disreputable mob behavior, and astroturfing. You're describing some of the behaviors that occur on those platforms, not their purpose. Governments have accounts on those platforms because it makes communicating with their constituents easier, because that's where the people are. It would be grossly irresponsible in this day and age for a government not to have any social media presence at all.

lowercased 3y ago

Should agencies never have published information to privately owned corporate newspapers? After all, you could just tell people they need to mosey down to city hall (or whatever govt agency) to look at the notice board for all the official topical information.

neilv 3y ago
The government agency issues a press release, then the newspaper journalist writes an article based on that and other information.
- mewpmewp2 3y ago
  Then it will take more time and not everyone reads newspapers.

wslh 3y ago

My two cents: they should cryptographically sign their messages in other platforms. There is enough length in Twitter now. I think the SEC is really responsible for not protecting investors in this case.

zikduruqe 3y ago
>they should cryptographically sign their messages in other platforms Like a Nostr account?
- wslh 3y ago
  Could Nostr now use Twitter/X or any other transport as an alternative?
pants2 3y ago
The SEC didn't even have 2FA set up on their account. One can hardly expect them to sign their messages.

bongodongobob 3y ago

Agreed. I don't see why they need to do interviews on the new fandangled television and radio programs either. If you want to learn about what the government is doing, pick up a newspaper or speak to your senator on congressman over the telephone line.

mewpmewp2 3y ago
Honestly you should pay the respect and invite them over to discuss things over a few beers. Telephone lines, government agencies should have no need for.

redcobra762 3y ago

There was a time when Twitter did generally seem to be a decent steward of public discourse, and many groups wanted to participate in the conversation. Ironically, that time ended around Oct. 2022.

NelsonMinar 3y ago
Twitter under Musk is absolutely not suitable for government communications.

wolverine876 3y ago

I've wondered that too, but government agencies have long bought ads in media, used the phone system, telegrams, etc. etc.

nashashmi 3y ago

It is a good point. Better for SEC/agency to setup an sec.gov/x page that x.com/secgov would replicate. That works well until sec.gov/x gets hacked.

ndriscoll 3y ago

They do post their press releases on their .gov website, and they do have RSS feeds: https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases https://www.sec.gov/news/pressreleases https://www.sec.gov/about/sec-rss https://www.sec.gov/about/sec-rss It looks like their tweets just link to their press releases on their website, though they're in random order for me and I can't see whether they have any replies or whatever, so I could be missing something.