A website is not the same as having robust infrastructure for public notifications. And to be clear-- neither is twitter, but a website you have to visit isn't as convenient or useful in an emergency where you want people to receive an alert without going to a website.

So, the requirements are more than a website, but also not a private 3rd party platform w/o service guarantees, and preferably something that doesn't have municipality, department or agency rolling their own solutions, duplicating effort, etc.

In the US the traditional systems are Emergency Alert & WEA but those don't encompass all the public awareness & notification needs that drive organizations to use something like Twitter. I'm not sure if the right answer is to expand those or creating something similar for scenarios currently outside their scope, but we could do worse than starting the conversation with that question.

Computers lack a protocol that drowns out anything and freezes your computer for broadcast alerts.

The online strategy so far, has to be where the people are, so most governments have multiple social media accounts, like Facebook and Twitter, and also websites and RSS. I’ve also seen, depending on the government, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, etc.

And, if I may, I think the point is that is all well and good, but for reliability's sake, a publicly, not privately, controlled alternative to any of the above (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, etc.) should be carefully considered. Mastodon is perfectly set up to be a valuable ADDITIONAL option for local governments using Twitter -- that doesn't mean "stop posting to Twitter," it means "also post to Mastodon" and be certain that, whatever shortcomings that may have, it's not entirely susceptible to the whims of a billionaire. Similarly, are Facebook posts by local government failing to reach users because of some change Zuck made to The Algorithm? Maybe we need to start looking into effective alternatives. If not, then we don't.

Those self-owned things, the website and RSS, already exist; all governments I’ve interacted with have one, and the subject of the article is no exception: https://news.gov.bc.ca/connect

The reality is that when it comes to spreading info to citizens you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

Netherland has something like that too. We had a big storm recently. Got three alerts on my phone. It works very well. Certainly better than Twitter.

Websites don't really work that well for push-based information, nor do they provide the automatic amplification offered by social media.

Can I assume that you mean static websites, because there is nothing special about social media; Twitter is quite literally just another website.

Twitter is not just a website, it is also a platform that facilitates push notifications so that people can receive information in near real time, passively, no need to visit a website. So neither Twitter or a website alone is the answer.

But that is not entirely accurate. The website/app instance is running on the phone/device/whatever. It is not passive. The user opened it ( or opted to keep it open in background ).

In other words, 'website' is visited. Information is accessed and sent back to the requester.

> The website/app instance is running on the phone/device/whatever. It is not passive. The user opened it ( or opted to keep it open in background ).

That's not how it works. Unless it's the foreground application, the application is not running; it's not kept open in the background. Instead, what happens is that the application registers with a push notification system when the user first opens it and logs in. When the user should be notified, the website sends a message to the push notification system's central servers, which notifies the phone (the push notification system does stay open in the background, but it's shared by all applications in the phone), which then starts the application on the phone to show the notification.

Thank you for this. It always helps to understand something better.

That said, does it change twitter's status as a website that just happens to have functionality X ( push notifications )?

Can WebNotify (or whatever) work? That thing that some sites nag me with could have a purpose? Does it work on mobile?

A user gets notifications without having to look at their phone. That seems passive? Sure, prior installation & configuration of the app days/months/years beforehand was an active step but once you give it permission to send you notifications all of those notifications are received without user intervention required.

> Twitter is quite literally just another website

Well, apart from the app

It is true that on the phone the way the information is presented is through an app ( and we can argue whether it is just a more restricted browser ), but definition of a website is:

related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server

If that is the case, app is just a bastardized website.

Stop being facetious. Twitter is way more complicated to build than a static website, and even if you did you wouldn't reach the same amount of users.

Pretty much. So you use a website and for people who don't use it that's their problem. My town also (used to have?) has an automatic phone system but I don't really pick up random calls and don't have a landline now so that's useless.

>for people who don't use it that's their problem

You're evacuating, driving along a highway, and during the course of your trip the available evacuation routes change. A website is useless here.

The context of the conversation is emergency situations, that has to be taken into account when thinking about the required public notification infrastructure.

But what is reliably useful at that point? Radio maybe? I'm not sure how Twitter or a Twitter clone is any more useful than a website. Phone alerts are probably the best choice at that point assuming you don't have them turned off.

Twitter can’t be better than a website because Twitter IS a website!

What Twitter was is better than Facebook, the main other governmental alert platform.

How is it useless? You're in traffic, you check Twitter on your phone, you change your plans. I can't subscribe to an RSS feed on a phone by default

If you get a chance. You're not necessarily going to be in traffic so slow that you can safely do that. Maybe you will, maybe not. Getting an alert means you don't have to guess & keep checking. If there's an additional alert you get it and only then have figure out how to safely check it.

> You're in traffic, you check Twitter on your phone

That is illegal in B.C.

An elected official will not be satisfied with the “that’s your problem” response, because they fear those people will vote them out of office.