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Comment by NowhereMan | Hacker News Reader

Do they whitelist accounts of public officials? For instance, having the POTUS account behind an auth wall seems like a horrible practice.

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It bothered from the other angle when POTUS started pushing Twitter as an important channel to keep up on what was going on because it's hardly ideal for that. My local government has similarly been making Nextdoor a de facto requirement if you want to know what's happening or want to give feedback (especially in an era of frequent town office closures).

I tend to favor minimal government but I think the USPS was an important outcome of the Constitution to fill the need for a universal and "official" communication channel. But their budget has been butchered, I get misdelivered mail all the time and the DMV tells me I'm not the only one in my town who never seems to get their mail, but there's no shortage of wasteful junk mail. If only I was confident we could nail the execution, I would love to see the Internet embraced as basic, universal infrastructure and an official government communication channel that's more reliable and less abused.

But I dream.

For what it’s worth, you can sign-up through DMAChoice to stop receiving junk mail [1]. It takes a few months after you sign up to really take effect, but it has easily eliminated 90% of the mail I used to receive. Well worth it IMO for the $2 fee every 10 years.

https://www.dmachoice.org/register.php

I'll take your word for it that it works, but I would have been skeptical. Am I correct in understanding that they essentially function is a communication medium with the companies maintaining these unsolicited mailing lists, and those companies voluntarily remove people that pay DMAchoice?

There are a number of other options.

You can mark mail "rejected" and return it to the delivery box or any post box.

https://refuseyourmail.cooperjr.name/how-to

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Refuse-unwanted-mail-and-remo...

First-class mail can be returned to sender:

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Return-to-Sender-Mail

Title 39, United States Code, Section 3008 authorizes the Postal Service™ to issue a prohibitory order against a mailer who sends you an advertisement offering to sell any matter that you, in your own discretion, believe to be “erotically arousing or sexually provocative.” You can request the order by completing the relevant portion of PS Form 1500, Application for Listing and/or Prohibitory Order, and submitting it to any Post Office™. The form is available at your local Post Office. Thirty days after receiving the order, the mailer is prohibited from sending you any further mail. Violating this prohibition makes the mailer subject to court enforcement action by the United States Government.

https://about.usps.com/publications/pub307/welcome.htm

I think of the issue a different way. The problem isn't having an official communications channel, but rather, being able to communicate somewhere where the average person will actually be exposed to it. POTUS puts out memos and briefings all the time on the official whitehouse.gov site, but who actually reads those? I see the fundamental problem as attention based, rather than infrastructure based.

The POTUS relying on a commercial entity to communicate with the public seems like a more fundamental horrible practice.

Especially when accounts could be hacked to say anything, like the incidents a couple years ago. Imagine the POTUS account pissing off an unstable dictator in some country, or posting of some sensitive information.

When has it been any different? Before twitter, it was TV and radio. Before RV and radio, it was newspapers. All of these are commercial entities (with a few non-profit exceptions).

television and radio were at least publicly available and based on published/known standards. you didn't need to ask anyone permission to receive signals.

On top of that the FCC governs the airwaves and (at least in theory) works to ensure they meet public need. There are also other rules such as the Equal Time Rule. Twitter is subject to nothing like these things.

It is older than the Republic.

Heads of state have spoken through commercial publications since printing existed. Roughly 1550.

Online Internet services merely happen to be the present iteration of this.

(I'm not saying that the practice isn't without its problems. I'm saying it's nothing new.)

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