- cross-posted to:
- aboringdystopia@lemmit.online
- news@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- aboringdystopia@lemmit.online
- news@hexbear.net
Japanese disaster prevention X account can’t post anymore after hitting API limit - The issue has arisen after major Tsunami warnings have been issued in areas of Japan following a strong earthquake::undefined
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Why governments would ever use a private service for critical use baffles me.
Create your own emergency notification system!
They have one, but you also want information to be where people are. Especially if where people are is full of misinformation and rumours.
Japan has various earthquake notification systems. Tweets are just one more way to get the information to the people on a platform they use.
Create your own emergency notification system!
Those never turn out well.
Running their own mastodon instance should be viable though.
I remember seeing that they did have a fediverse account? This seems related to that
Yup see here:
It’s also in the article linked above:
Luckily, the creators of the NERV App, Gehirn Inc, have created an app-based alternative for users to get information in real-time, as well as running a Mastodon account.
Is Mastodon even viable for time sensitive information? You need to wait for your instance to propagate the post from their instance which can take time.
As opposed to waiting until next month for your API call limit to reset?
I’d suggest they join a system that has users, proper SLA and an open frontpage.
As much as you might like Mastodon for being open, there are no SLA between instances. Bluesky or Threads likely do.
Not saying they shouldn’t start their own Mastodon, but not for emergency and time sensitive things. Or just for people who can’t access those other services. More options also mean more reach.
They made their own: https://unnerv.jp/@UN_NERV
Is Twitter/X viable for that? They can decide, and have, to randomly put information behind login walls.
They technically still have an SLA, but it’s unclear how much they respect it. And if X isn’t viable there are other platforms that are.
SLA? If that means something like “service level agreement” (I don’t know, you didn’t specify, I’m guessing) then I can still find examples where it falls well below what I would expect from a public service such that if there was an agreement in place that I would definitely be opposed to it as a tax payer.
And if X isn’t viable there are other platforms that are.
I mean yes obviously, there are much more viable platforms like Mastodon, or even a self-hosted website.
And again, which was the point of my original comment, Mastodon may not do great when you need to propagate the post to other platforms. Unless you know something I don’t, Mastodon is horrible for time sensitive information, since it can take hours to get to your instance.
It’s a secondary feature of a mysterious enterprise, unknown to americans, called “public media”
Just mass send SMSs in a given area
Cell phones already have the emergency alert system they could just use that.
One thing I wish iOS/Android did was have the option for these emergency alerts to be multilingual, or provide some sort of auto translation. When i was in Japan in November, I received an emergency alert due to NK launching some missiles. It’s pretty scary to have your phone blow up with a loud alarm, and not being able to read the alert because it’s in Japanese. On iOS, you also can’t just copy the notification to translate it. I had to take a picture, and then have Google Translate translate it.
I was anticipating some big earthquake, but turned out to be a child playing with his rockets.
I’m able to take a screenshot and translate this comment in the photos app in iOS.
Edit: I have no idea how good the translation is, but I’ve done it this way for things that needed translation.
You’re right, but that was my point, you have to take a screenshot and translate it. It wasn’t something I thought about when my phone was blasting out a loud alarm.
In those kind of emergencies, either it should’ve been auto translated to the users’ default language, or a quick translate option should be available.
Remember when just about every government employee was carrying around a BlackBerry device for official business?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
That’s different. They had signed contacts and were legally obligated to provide service. Twitter is a free service that can be turned off at any time, with no notice, and is run by a schizophrenic twat with a god complex. It’s just monumentally stupid to put lives on the line through a service like that.
I remember when they all loved the Nextel PTT phones.
This same issue happened during wildfire season in BC, Canada if I recall. A small polite media outrage over it, then forgotten.
Best case scenario would be an independent, international system developed within and for the emergency services community worldwide. Judging by the way firefighters travel internationally to fight forest fires worldwide, the community could be strong enough to support a solution like that, in my opinion.
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For reference, the article I’m referring to:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/twitter-policy-change-hampers-drivebc-1.6894793
“Social media’s reliability in emergencies questioned after Twitter limit blocks DriveBC posts” (Jul 12).
Whether a provincial traffic account posting emergency info counts as news links for these large companies or not, it’s a pretty ugly look for them to have been blocking emergency information, and it doesn’t look any better now 6 months later.
The whole thing is pretty typical (Canadian) government “not enough, and too late” -style regulation regardless, but these social media sites could think twice about playing the villain so readily in response.
It makes a lot of sense to post where the people are. Roll your own and note the people need your app/etc. granted, everyone is reading X on their smartphone and I’m 100% positive that Japan has the same kind of emergency broadcast system that we have in North America, but again that’s not meant for lots of messages, where a social networking site is.
Hate to say it but I would commonly get alerts from Twitter in the before times about local issues before I would get notified by my local government. Sadly they switched to encrypted radios so I can’t even keep up that way either these days
NERV isnt owned by gov and:
Luckily, the creators of the NERV App, Gehirn Inc, have created an app-based alternative for users to get information in real-time, as well as running a Mastodon account.
Because it’s often easier, cheaper, and more efficient in cases that mirror public needs. Alerting, SMS, cloud storage, all are solved and competitively priced. And don’t get me wrong, there ARE use cases for doing certain things custom or internally. There will need to be a mix of things.
The issue, is having an appropriate SLA and having the ability to hold companies accountable when it’s not met. You need stated provisions that won’t happen. Most commercial enterprises already operate under this model successfully, however many of the tools don’t have SLAs around an earth quake. Most companies are willing to provide those provisions but it totally will come with extra cost which is typically not budgeted or sales teams or contracting officers are not equipped to have these conversations.
This is reason #856632 that you don’t put vital government services on fucking Twitter.
Or any other service, that like Twitter, is a closed for profit service of a multinational for profit corporations.
The universe of stupidity is so endless that I don’t know in which direction to fight really.
On most public\political subjects people I talk to think I’m delusional, they talk how “free markets don’t work”, “regulation prevents murderous chaos”, “regulation prevents monopolies and wild capitalism” and so on.
But when it’s this kind of thing, it suddenly becomes all right for them to offload a public service to a private company. And they suddenly become optimists. Same fscking people. I once had that from a communist.
I think it’s primate psychology. Libertarian ideas are seen as delusional because these people fear chaos and the feeling of letting go. And for the same reason big corporations are seen as all right because they are familiar, there’s the feeling of order and control. Primates flock to strength.
For the same reason some people defend copyright, I think. They want hierarchy, somebody owning every recognizable picture. A master in the house.
I thin libertarian is just anarchy by another name. Regulated free market is the way to go, if you want democracy, which is the least bad, but those regulations need constant adjustment. The system need constant weeding or corruption grows.
Force platforms like Twitter to support ActivityPub from governments. Then give alerts to citizens that way. Tear down the closed walls at least for government emergency alerts.
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There are government text messages and local websites and all sorts of ways of reaching people. Unfortunately, X probably reaches ten times as many people. I think a diversified approach makes sense.
That being said, us gov has sent the text messages and that seems to be the best way to do it. Everyone has a phone. And if you don’t, then you like to live on the edge.
All cell phones connected to a Japanese network received a notification regardless of their carrier, brand or what apps they installed.
This is already way better than whatever reach X provides.
Yeah, and kinda renders this thread and article pointless. X serves a redundant feature. Who cares if they treated a government like any other paying customer (like shit)? Bashing X is trendy and this article is just another one. I say this never having had Twitter, nor X, and I just don’t care. I also don’t own any MuskBrands™ stock or anything.
Yeah, and kinda renders this thread and article pointless. X serves a redundant feature.
Yeah, I’m ashamed for all the text I’ve typed in now.
If so, then everything is done perfectly (why would they even bother with Twitter though).
NERV is a private service, which rebroadcasts government emergency warnings with better representations.
It annoys me that pretty much every local government agency is on Twitter and FB and don’t even really update their own websites. It’s a shame nobody uses RSS much these days.
Not being on Twitter in this case is like shouting “RUN AWAY!” in several empty rooms and not bothering to go into the room full of people.
Emergency broadcasts should be on all platforms. You need to maximize the chance of reaching people.
Yes, I understand that they’re on Twitter and fb because that’s where their audience is. But I don’t want to be required to use Twitter or fb to read their updates, so it would be nice if they also posted to some sort of neutral platform like idk, their own websites.
They posted on mastodon though
Yes, it’s popular in Japan. In the US you won’t find local police or emergency agencies on mastodon.
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It’s almost like trying to run the world on social media was a shit tier idea.
It was a good way to offload responsibility for something actually working.
With social media the unreliability card has been played (by us, asocial nerds, killjoys and neckbeards) and beaten (by them, normal sane social successful people) 10+ years ago, so even when it’s a serious role being discussed, that card can’t be played again.
It worked pretty well for what it was created to do, then corporations and governments thought they could profit off of it. I assume they were also concerned that people were starting to talk about things they didn’t want people to talk about, like their penchant for buying and selling children.
It worked pretty well for what it was created to do
Which is the unknown variable in this conversation.
Say, for my ends social media never worked well.
It pains me to communicate with many (by my measure) friends and acquaintances, knowing that those are basically DMs on a site ran by somebody and hundreds (or maybe thousands) of employees can just read those DMs. Writing personal things there, because people refuse to be worried about being likely eavesdropped on.
In general the worst prison is the one you’ve built for yourself and locked yourself in. And to learn to sing one has to start singing.
I can understand what you mean.
I suppose on my end the reason that social media exists was as a forum for open communication with strangers that you would never actually meet in real life, generally to discuss interests and hobbies, or to just shoot the shit. I’ve never viewed it as a platform for replacing the methods we already had for communicating with people we did know in real life, such as phone, or just meeting with them face to face.
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How about avoiding commercial platforms when it comes to vitally important official communication?
They do, all phones get an emergency alert and tvs display a message. Twitter was another vector to spread the word out.
Well. Then they should tell those people who still use X that this is an unreliable source. For anything else it already is, anyway.
Or maybe if you use x you should be smart enough to understand what’s going on already lol
I don’t rate people who still use X as “smart”.
Kind of like the amber alert system?
The thing is, they communicate where people’s at. People gotta move
People will move if they learn that their lives are at stake by using X.
NERV already has a Mastodon server.
They already announced last year that they want to move away from Twitter.
They are using older version of Mastodon, in which it could lead to problems. They should update the software.
Gotta love stirring up old controversies for views because it’s fashionable to hate Twitter right now lol
Edit: I guess people didn’t have the healthy dose of skepticism that I felt seeing this. The Dexerto article delivers very little new information; this was a known issue back in August 2023. I suppose Dexerto, a website known for spinning up drama for views, will keep reposting this same information every time Japan has an earthquake. Hating on Twitter is fashionable, so Dexerto’s going to use that to gain views to their site.
Evaluate your sources, people.
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Love it when corporations have more power than government entities.
The dystopian future is coming faster than ever
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That crazy dystopian future where the government has to abide by the terms and conditions of private corporations. So wild. 🙄
Letting people senselessly get injured or die seems to be a common theme in Elon’s ventures, so I’m not all that surprised about this.
I feel like this is warranted:
Fuck Elon.
Come on, this is totally the japanese government’s fault. They should be aware of the limits of the services they use. How are we blaming Twitter for the incompetence of the japanese government? I get that we want to hate in Twitter but how incompetent is that team? A disaster prevention team didn’t forsee the limits of the communication services they use?
I don’t like Twitter but come on, stop shifting the blame.
Twitter worked. Elon bought it. Enshittification ensued. Twitter broke. Hmmm…
What an astute and elaborate explanation. Surely this is this answer and the guy you responded to is definitely over simplifying it.
Sounds like it’s time for governments to get off Xitter.
Everyone should.
Twitter was useless but X is just a vanity project at this point
It definitely makes headlines worse anyway
The Evangelion app name is pure gold.
Fuck X and Musk.
What Evangelion app?
NERV is the name of the major organization in Evangelion. Gehirn Inc, the creator of this app, is the name of the predecessor to NERV in NGE. The font and red design are also the same.
Edit: Seems like the creator is a huge NGE fan and just went with it.
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The tsunami warning app is named NERV as the devs are big fans of Evangelion.
Aaaaah ok
Just say twitter. Calling it “x” will literally always be silly and cumbersome.
I just call it twitter because I like dead-naming it.
Does that…do something?
No. But the asshole wants me to call it X, so I’m not.
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1/7 of the staff to run a company, how stupid.
Why is a critical service like disaster precention using an unreliable service like Twitter?
It’s probably one of numerous ways they try and reach people. Wouldn’t be surprised if they have it set up to spam alerts out through various mechanisms including social media. It’s just that one platform is now complete dogshit. Maybe this failure will hasten Twitter’s decline in Japan.
Why not? Wouldn’t you want information going out on every available service? They likely have info going out on Facebook as well.
Let me just pull out the old Pidgeon
@L4s Just FYI the NERV app mentioned on the article is not government official. (Althought I believe it uses government oficial APIs for earthquake detection)
That’s a bot account BTW. There’s a flag next to the name to indicate that but I guess it’s not visible on mastodon.
Yeah, it just added automatically when hitting Reply here on masto. TIL that if you delete the @ mention, it still becomes a thread :)
If you’re already replying to someone, the @ seems totally redundant.
It’s just the default way on masto, I guess for microblogging historical reasons.
But the town square!!!111
This is how I feel…
Society if people read the article:
I read the title. Had some thoughts and opinions. After reading the article, the thoughts and opinions remain the same.
The article lists prices for next level api requests but it’s 5000 dollars compared to the 100 that the non profit is already paying. They encouraged users to download their app to receive potentially life saving alerts.
I summed up the article in three sentences.
I’m not defending X or anything, I’m just asking people to read the damn article before going in with the obligatory “Why not Mastodon?” If they had read the article, they would’ve known that the project has a Mastodon account already and we wouldn’t have been wasting our time.
Fair. The common user uses the easiest, most accessible programs and applications. At this time, lemmy or mastodon is not common.
Make a fancy colorful app with big buttons and fun pictures and people will flock here. From what I see, the common user base here is advanced level tech people.
That’s ugly and scary, use this instead
That looks like it supports a few dozen people, maybe?
Not sure if it’s the residential part
Or how about this?
bugs. bugs everywhere. damage from roots. watering nightmare.
I don’t think any more bugs than an average suburban neighborhood. If you look closely, it’s a lot less dense than it appears, although even people who live in rural areas don’t have some super insect problem. Damage from roots can be mitigated by using the proper construction materials. You don’t have to water anything. It’s outside.
I grew up in Jamaica. If that image comes with the eradication of mosquitoes, I’d be more open to the idea! Even the sturdiest materials, proper drainage, and regular pruning would eventually see erosion issues and excessive maintenance requirements. But I’m certainly not an engineer that could solve for all the long term concerns.
Slightly better ? still looks like a giant lawn with masturbatory buildings
Aseptic lawns ? glass & metal buildings ? flying cars ? Surefire way of preventing me from reading any future article
