Twitter imposes a login-wall to view emergency updates from Cal Fire AEU | Hacker News Reader

Twitter imposes a login-wall to view emergency updates from Cal Fire AEU

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17 pointsriffic9 comments

I've noticed a trend in the last few days (past week, actually) where people have complained about Twitter imposing a login-wall. Threads on this from /r/Twitter on Reddit, for example, have details on users unable to view tweets without having an account:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/search?sort=new&restrict_sr...

My premise is that the public sector shouldn't be so closely tied to such awful actors. Twitter's track record is increasingly user-hostile.

One user's point:

> The complaint is “As a taxpayer, how can I access public information from a public agency, without being forced to put private information into some third party database?”

Indeed I plan on contacting both cal-fire and my representative. It’s high time a public, open source alternative to Twitter is developed. We have cspan; we need the Twitter equivalent. Twitters curious choices around who gets deplatformed (the taliban are ok? really?!) should be enough justification.

There's Mastodon, but network effects and name recognition are a big sticking point for Twitter.

I can already hear angry mobs mobilizing to Nationalize Twitter™

there's no need. Public sector agencies could expend their resources on standards-compliant ethical alternatives instead.

The real problem is Cal Fire using Twitter to disseminate important data.

Post it on an official government website. Tweet a link to it. Don't try to use Twitter or any other service for hosting critical information.

Also, it's ironic that this complaint was posted on Reddit, which is now notorious for the login-wall depending on how you access the website.

these public agencies don't know better.

They post updates on their website but it’s very useful to have meteorologists, journalists and the public able to post alongside.

They do post to an official government website. They also do outreach via Twitter and Facebook and it's very useful. It'd be a real shame if the Twitter outreach got less effective.

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