> If their Twitter account is the only place I can hear about active shooter threats in my area
??? Do you actually use your local politicians Twitter to see if there's an active shooter?
??? Do you actually use your local politicians Twitter to see if there's an active shooter?
During the pandemic, my state governor had an official Q&A regarding the state's policies, on Facebook.
I couldn't participate without accepting Facebook's T&Cs.
I'm not sure if that was illegal, but I'd like it to be.
Why not just have a template app that's open source and publicly financed, and the only local part is configuration data like name of the mayor, specific phone #s etc. US local government is already massively duplicative and wasteful.
Open governance sometimes requires considerations, e.g. public access, that aren't always crucial for private commerce.
Actually, yes, we should expect this.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/23/16923080/hawaii-governor-...
When there was murderer on the loose recently where I live we definitely watched Twitter more than anything else for updates. The traditional media was incredibly delayed and their reporting was awful and inconsistent.
When our home was in trouble due to major wildfire, local journalists and citizen journalists on YouTube and Twitter was the most reliable place for updates.
Where else would you recommend besides Twitter/X and official channels?
I don’t see why government officials who are performing paid work as public government officials should be allowed to hide or delete access to their work in any capacity.
If they don’t want to expose themselves to the public then don’t use the channel to communicate in the first place.
You don’t have to use social media for official communications.
I think this is mostly a problem among small towns, counties, etc. so residents of big cities may not notice it as much (like the death of real local journalism). I think it usually boils down to the fact that it's easier for a lay person to update a Facebook or Twitter page than it is to maintain their own website, and IT people are expensive.
I'm in the US Army, and "Big Army" at the top level does OK with its websites (e.g. army.mil), but it also consists of many geographically distributed, semi-independent, sub-organizations (units) that each have a handful of people doing public affairs work. The official websites at those lower levels have been rotting for years, and public affairs folks have freely admitted to me that they don't know how to update their official websites besides changing the photo and biography of the new commander once every two years.