Governments have been PAYING to inform the public via commercial services for… ever? And requiring citizens to do the same. Have you ever seen a public notice in a newspaper? At least posting on Twitter is free (for now).
Why is it absurd? The best way to reach people is on the platforms they use. People are not going to install some government app or use a special website to see those kinds of messages.
Because it is a platform governed by a 3rd party entity in a foreign country. That platform can ban and censor citizen, based on foreign cultural values and arbitrary rules, limiting citizen access to their own goverments information.
The platform governments choose to use for public information and debate should always provide open and public access to that information.
A government should not require its citizen to create a Twitter account, and thereby requiring them to provide their personal information to a foreign country, just to be part of the public debate and to get public information. That is just plainly wrong.
That’s nice but all of that is irrelevant. You can view tweets without making an account.
Also, not one government solely relies on Twitter to disperse information, it is just one additional channel. They also use their own websites, apps, TV and radio.
There is some kind of account-wall on Twitter. I have been hit with a popup asking me to sign up or log in plenty of times, in order to be allowed to read the tweets I was trying to read.
So twitter is not allowing everyone to read the tweets without an account.
The fact that a state government used a commercial service to inform the public is absurd, and this was bound to happen eventually.
Governments have been PAYING to inform the public via commercial services for… ever? And requiring citizens to do the same. Have you ever seen a public notice in a newspaper? At least posting on Twitter is free (for now).
“For now”, is right. That isn’t always the case.
Why is it absurd? The best way to reach people is on the platforms they use. People are not going to install some government app or use a special website to see those kinds of messages.
Because it is a platform governed by a 3rd party entity in a foreign country. That platform can ban and censor citizen, based on foreign cultural values and arbitrary rules, limiting citizen access to their own goverments information.
The platform governments choose to use for public information and debate should always provide open and public access to that information.
A government should not require its citizen to create a Twitter account, and thereby requiring them to provide their personal information to a foreign country, just to be part of the public debate and to get public information. That is just plainly wrong.
That’s nice but all of that is irrelevant. You can view tweets without making an account.
Also, not one government solely relies on Twitter to disperse information, it is just one additional channel. They also use their own websites, apps, TV and radio.
There is some kind of account-wall on Twitter. I have been hit with a popup asking me to sign up or log in plenty of times, in order to be allowed to read the tweets I was trying to read.
So twitter is not allowing everyone to read the tweets without an account.