New reversal by Twitter after move sparked MTA withdrawal

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

New reversal by Twitter after move sparked MTA withdrawal

By BARBARA ORTUTAY
May 3, 2023

In an about-face, Twitter says it has restored free access to a key tool for verified government and “publicly owned” services so they can tweet weather, transit and other alerts after New York City’s transit agency said earlier this week it would no longer use the platform for its service advisories.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is among countless official and unofficial accounts that abruptly lost access to Twitter’s API, or application programming interface, to send out automated alerts about service changes and emergencies last week. By Thursday afternoon, senior executives agreed to cease publishing service alerts to the platform altogether.

The decision put the country’s largest transportation network among a growing number of accounts, from National Public Radio to Elton John, who have reduced their Twitter presence or left the platform since its takeover by Elon Musk.

Twitter had signaled that the days of private accounts disseminating troves of information at no cost may be ending. Last month, the company announced a new pricing system that would charge for access to its API, which is used by accounts that post frequent alerts, such as transit and weather agencies.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/twitter-api-mta-emergency-alerts-elon-musk-4fd94cc19fb57160333fe5b511284e1e

[Hermit-The-Prog]

1. Government agencies should run their own servers + services to be safe

https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/run-your-own/

Why would you want to run your own Mastodon server?

Absolute control over your own voice on the web, not subject to anyone else’s rules or whims. Your server is your property, with your rules. It will exist as long as you want it to exist.

You are not isolated on your own server. You can follow anyone on any other server, and they can follow you and you can exchange messages just like if you were on the same server.

You can either limit sign-ups to be the only one on the server and run it like personal (micro)blog, maintain an invite-only community for family or friends or run a server anyone can sign up on, it’s up to you!

[ ... ]

[mopinko]

3. they do. mta gave up cuz they have their own apps.

chgo ta also has it’s own apps. i think most of the weather services do too.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. If they run their own servers, why did they use twitter?

[mopinko]

5. to reach everyone they could.

regular commuters would likely have the app, but ppl who dont use it every day likely wouldnt.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. For the sake of an 'app', they turned control over to an egoloon

If you're dependent on software you can't control, you can't own or control your business.

An "app" is trivial. Commuters capable of checking twitter can check a mastodon service run by MTA or NYC. I'd be willing to bet they have lots of people working at MTA already who could set up and maintain a mastodon server.

[riversedge]

2. Musk is a selfish little "man"!!