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.).
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.).