I wonder why such an important piece of info is posted on social media but not on a dedicated webpage that can be linked to any social media posts.
Social media has a very good ratio of information spreading versus effort required. It’s also why it’s a popular thing for misinformation and influence campaigns.
In contrast, if a government agency wants to make a website for this, it probably needs a proposal, budget request, approval by a commission, a bidding process, and other bureaucatic procedures put in place by politicians that wanted to lower spending.
How hard is it to hire some 23 year old who just graduated in IT and ask them to do it? Static webpages aren’t hard, drag learned how to make them in high school.
I mean, it’s not like people would check that dedicated webpage on their own, and they are less likely to click on that webpage to get the additional details. Just put it on the platform most people are using and don’t add extra steps to see what’s needed.
If they’re looking to Xitter it could be copy/pasted instead, but then updates get harder to manage.
if you read the article, you’d find out that the alert linked to the X post. it could be linking to a dedicated webpage instead, which wouldn’t require logging in.
It should be linked to another page. Social media should never the be the primary source for anything like this.
That was my take. Still is, but was before, too, although I have concerns about it. I don’t even use xitter. It’s an unfortunate conundrum and I don’t know the answer. We are clearly seeing the results of channeling government communications through private platforms where information can be gatekept. But what’s the alternative? I agree that the government website should be the primary source and private platforms the secondary source, but, much in the way US-market cars hide the “real” tail lights in/under the trunk in order to put “aux” tail lights on moving trunk/tailgate panels, that’s just not how the general public will use it.
People want to be entertained. Getting info through private media is the most we can hope for. People don’t want to get real news media, let alone their local government’s attempt at a blog site. I know we get amber alerts direct from the cell network to some unique software on phones, but I imagine rolling out some more-frequent alert system will cause a ton of privacy/freedom backlash crying about being one goosestep away from China.
But what’s the alternative?
the government hosting their own social media like how some college campus’ have their own mastadon server specifically for their universities news. It’s not like other organizations haven’t already done it before. Spin your own server, and in your alerts, link your own mastodon server, which should not require user login to read. The platform doesnt matter as long as the information and where to send additional information for help is functional for them. spinning their own servers gives them full control of the outcome.
