Kate StarbirdIn ~2014, my colleague & I argued that social media (esp. Twitter) had become part of the critical infrastructure of disaster response. People were turning to Twitter during crises to share information about impacts and resources. Disaster responders were using the data shared there for situational awareness, and were communicating in real-time with their constituents. Today’s events underscore just how dangerous it is for society to come to rely on private platforms as critical infrastructure.
Tim Chambers@katestarbird Amen.
Michael Mathy@tchambers @katestarbird but everything is private anyway. For instance, even 911 uses a private network to be reachable.
Or we have to regulate private companies at some points if they have reached a certain level of public service.
Or we have to regulate private companies at some points if they have reached a certain level of public service.
Eric LawtonI was in my early 30s before I used a private telephone network.
Before that, British phones and Alberta phones both public utilities.
Then I moved to Ontario, with Bell.
Then British phones were privatized, then Alberta.
Service didn't get better or cheaper but at least profits were made.
@EricLawton @tchambers @katestarbird
And is it a full private company ?
In Belgium, based on European rules, the main phone company is owned at 50% + 1 share by the Belgian government.
So at least, basic public services are still provided as the emergency phone number.
British Telecom (now just BT) shares were sold off incrementally until it was fully private.
Alberta Government Telephones (AGT) was sold to a holding company, Telus, which also bought the BC public telephone network and now operates across Canada, "competing" in an oligopoly with a few others, giving Canada among the highest cell phone rates in the industrialized world.
Keelan@EricLawton @michaelmathy @tchambers @katestarbird clarification on BC Tel: it was not and was never was a government owned company. In fact it was one of the few Canadian telephone companies that was majority-owned by an American corporation (GTE), because the acquisition predated Canadian regulations on foreign ownership of telecom companies.
ProtectiveHen@EricLawton @michaelmathy @tchambers @katestarbird Thanks for this helpful reminder that the world didn't used to be so neoliberal/libertarian. We CAN go back to expanding governmental utilities!
@michaelmathy @tchambers I think we argued in our original paper that regulation was needed, similar to the telecoms. Let me see if I can find it.
Thanks !
But as we were discussing with @wesley in a separate conversation, the fact that Twitter is used for "critical" public information without an approved SLA is a bad risk assessment if it is their only communication channel.
Tasha@michaelmathy @tchambers @katestarbird
But these "private networks" Phone lines and the like etc are HEAVILY regulated assuring access to all users. AND you don't get fed ads all the time from their algorithm feeding your fears with propaganda because you can use the service
@katestarbird In the DC area we had a serious weather warning for severe storms and where normally I'd look to Capital Weather Gang's Twitter account (the WashPost weather team's main source for breaking weather) now it was fully non-functional.
@tchambers And for folks like me who refuse to log in, it’s essentially useless for real-time information sharing. And that doesn’t even begin to get to the loss of research ability and automated tools to support info sharing about disaster events. In the first case study I worked on, Red River Floods of 2009, people set up automated accounts to tweet the flood heights. Over and over again, we saw innovation to support info sharing enabled by an open platform and API. That’s all gone. :(
@katestarbird Completely feel your pain on each and every point there.
Hoping after today's jolt, more and more services move to have a presence here and on BlueSky, and on whatever Instagram Threads might be - if it really robustly supports decentralization.
Ken Anderson@katestarbird @tchambers Agreed. So much of the work that we studied and did on Project EPIC would now no longer be possible. It’s a real shame and hopefully we can see the work on crisis informatics continue on an open, distributed platform like Mastodon.
Keith Ivey@kenbod @katestarbird @tchambers The distributed nature and lack of search make it hard for Mastodon to fill that role.
Nathan Carpenter@katestarbird @tchambers I spent years promoting Twitter for emergency communications and have so many regrets
Smellbringer@tchambers @katestarbird Same case in Cali, the National Weather Service uses Twitter quite a bit.
Really helpful with this heatwave we're going through.
Don Hawkins - W7DAH