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Missourians reported experiencing a similar problem in July 2023, when the Missouri Highway Patrol apostle An Amber Alert push notification with a link to an X post Local residents similarly spoke about how they would not see the alerts if they did not log into the platform. Missouri Highway Patrol Lt. Eric Brown, who works in the Department of Public Information and Education, said “it was quite a change” from how the warnings used to work.
But the incident ultimately did not prompt the Missouri Highway Patrol to abandon X as a platform for Amber Alert push notifications. According to Brown, when X verified the law enforcement account as an official government entity, the log-in problem went away, and the public could once again access his posts.
Several of the California Highway Patrol’s official X accounts have the same verification badge as the Missouri Highway Patrol, including one Specially dedicated to spreading active alert across the state However, not all of the California agency’s accounts appear to have been verified, including what does it look like The official channel of the CHP’s Southern Division, which includes Los Angeles County.
When it was known as Twitter, there was X widely seen As an essential part of the global disaster and emergency communications infrastructure. Government officials and organizations around the world relied on the service as a way to broadcast information about hurricanes, mass shootings and other crises. Before Musk took over the platform in 2022, anyone could see public tweets in their browser regardless of whether they had an account on the site or had Twitter’s mobile app installed. (In 2015, the company Report (That more than 500 million people visit Twitter’s site every month without logging in.)
In June 2023, reported that X was Start locking content A log-in screen starts popping up online behind. Musk at this time to call The move was a “temporary emergency measure” put in place because X was “looting so much data that it was degrading service.” It’s unclear exactly what Musk was referring to, but he was in the same month expressed concern AI companies like OpenAI are accused of scraping Twitter posts without prior approval.
Now it seems the decision to make X a more closed platform has stalled. According to tests conducted this week, X has limited what people without an account can see. WIRED saw several of its staff reporters without logging into X accounts, for example, and was only able to see a sample of their popular posts, rather than a comprehensive chronological feed. It appears that accounts maintained by government agencies are not restricted in this way; All posts shared by the California Highway Patrol’s alert account can be viewed without logging in.
In addition to allowing viewing of content shared on the platform, another way Twitter previously helped emergency communicators was by giving them free access to its API, which Musk later withdrew. that Authorized organization Like the US National Tsunami Warning Center to send automated warnings about potentially deadly natural disasters. Researchers and first responders can use the API to monitor activity across Twitter and “get key insights like identifying risk hot spots or combating misinformation,” Hughes said. “The platform’s role has changed as policy and public usage has evolved, so its functionality may look quite different today.”
Despite these shortcomings, X still remains an important platform for relaying information in emergencies. In October, several government information officials declared an emergency PRWeek said They planned to continue posting updates despite X’s declining usefulness, as they had amassed a large following on the site and their priority was ultimately ensuring that accurate information reached as many people as possible. But the California incident this week highlights how government agencies can run into trouble when third-party services once considered reliable later change their policies in an unexpected way.
