Surely you’re not saying they shouldn’t have had a Twitter presence?
Or is this more of a “they should have left when Elon took over” kind of thing? In which case, they probably thought that the majority of people who follow(ed) them on there wouldn’t have left immediately - not least because there weren’t any good alternatives* at the time - so it would have made sense to maintain a presence, which I think is what’s actually going on.
* Yes, Mastodon existed, but you’ve got to think about the average person here. There’s a reason the first people on there were academics and tech folks.
It’s the government, they spend millions of public money in pr, they should have never had a twitter account to begin with and should have used their own tools.
Where are their communications? Who visits a government website without needing to?
To me it makes sense that they should cover as much ground as possible and have accounts on all major platforms as well as making announcements on TV and radio.
And in order to do so they should have their own accounts on there in order that their message gets across directly without having to go through a third party that has an account on there.
Now, when that site starts espousing “free speech” of the sort that only they like, then it might be a good idea to not use that particular platform any more, because that brings in the third party interference that wasn’t there in the first place, even if the site was technically third party.
But hey whatever, now let’s make, say, the BBC the mouthpiece of the government - it’s not like the Tories didn’t try really hard to do that when they were in power - and have everyone report on that. Far better.
Twitter is not a public place and has been looking more and more like the opposite of it. Nowadays you can not even go someone’s profile to browse their timeline without logging in.
It may not be a public place per se, but it is a place where a very large cohort of the general public go.
Perhaps my analogy should have been “This is bit like saying that governments shouldn’t make announcements on television and radio stations not under government control.”
The same logic applies there. Of course they should. A large cohort of the general public watch television and listen to the radio (less so these days in the age of the Internet, but people do still watch and listen there.).
@palordrolap@rglullis@brachiosaurus But generally government officials make announcements at press conferences in government buildings with an open method for press to become acredited and attend. Sure politicians do media appearances - buts thats different - they are normally acting as an individual - effectively as a candidate.
TV stations and radio channels are under government control. The government is the one who controls the licenses for spectrum.
it is a place where a very large cohort of the general public go.
Unless your are completely inept at technology and you have no regards for open standards, there is zero reason to think “just go wherever the audiences are” is a sensible strategy for public institutions.
The internet at large is still accessible. RSS is still a thing. Email is still a thing. If people really are so interested in following status updates from the government, they can easily go to the government-owned website. We are not talking about someone running a food truck and wants to reach customers to sell burritos. We are talking about entities that are so large that they make their own gravity.
@palordrolap@rglullis@brachiosaurus Government should post things in publoc places but X and Facebook arent public. They are like shopping malls - free to talk into but put restrictions around what you can do, substitute public law for.private contractual agreements and they replace public justice for their abitrary decision making about behalviour and extract costs ( data, tracking, attention sellijg & emotional manulipulation) from visitors. All of these things are bad for citizen involvement.
Why are they there in the first place?
Surely you’re not saying they shouldn’t have had a Twitter presence?
Or is this more of a “they should have left when Elon took over” kind of thing? In which case, they probably thought that the majority of people who follow(ed) them on there wouldn’t have left immediately - not least because there weren’t any good alternatives* at the time - so it would have made sense to maintain a presence, which I think is what’s actually going on.
* Yes, Mastodon existed, but you’ve got to think about the average person here. There’s a reason the first people on there were academics and tech folks.
It’s the government, they spend millions of public money in pr, they should have never had a twitter account to begin with and should have used their own tools.
Government creates announcement feed. No-one knows about it because they can only advertise it on their own announcement feed.
What now?
@palordrolap @brachiosaurus They put it on their website and mention it in their communications. People and journalists sibscribe.
Where are their communications? Who visits a government website without needing to?
To me it makes sense that they should cover as much ground as possible and have accounts on all major platforms as well as making announcements on TV and radio.
And in order to do so they should have their own accounts on there in order that their message gets across directly without having to go through a third party that has an account on there.
Now, when that site starts espousing “free speech” of the sort that only they like, then it might be a good idea to not use that particular platform any more, because that brings in the third party interference that wasn’t there in the first place, even if the site was technically third party.
But hey whatever, now let’s make, say, the BBC the mouthpiece of the government - it’s not like the Tories didn’t try really hard to do that when they were in power - and have everyone report on that. Far better.
No, they shouldn’t have a Twitter presence. All public institutions should require full authority over the domain used for mass communication.
This is a bit like saying that governments shouldn’t post notices in public places.
How?
Twitter is not a public place and has been looking more and more like the opposite of it. Nowadays you can not even go someone’s profile to browse their timeline without logging in.
@rglullis@communick.news @abeorch@friendica.ginestes.es
It may not be a public place per se, but it is a place where a very large cohort of the general public go.
Perhaps my analogy should have been “This is bit like saying that governments shouldn’t make announcements on television and radio stations not under government control.”
The same logic applies there. Of course they should. A large cohort of the general public watch television and listen to the radio (less so these days in the age of the Internet, but people do still watch and listen there.).
@palordrolap @rglullis @brachiosaurus But generally government officials make announcements at press conferences in government buildings with an open method for press to become acredited and attend. Sure politicians do media appearances - buts thats different - they are normally acting as an individual - effectively as a candidate.
TV stations and radio channels are under government control. The government is the one who controls the licenses for spectrum.
Unless your are completely inept at technology and you have no regards for open standards, there is zero reason to think “just go wherever the audiences are” is a sensible strategy for public institutions.
The internet at large is still accessible. RSS is still a thing. Email is still a thing. If people really are so interested in following status updates from the government, they can easily go to the government-owned website. We are not talking about someone running a food truck and wants to reach customers to sell burritos. We are talking about entities that are so large that they make their own gravity.
@palordrolap @rglullis @brachiosaurus Government should post things in publoc places but X and Facebook arent public. They are like shopping malls - free to talk into but put restrictions around what you can do, substitute public law for.private contractual agreements and they replace public justice for their abitrary decision making about behalviour and extract costs ( data, tracking, attention sellijg & emotional manulipulation) from visitors. All of these things are bad for citizen involvement.