Twitter, once the most powerful real-time information system ever built, so much so someone accidentally live tweeted the death of bin Laden, now not only can’t be used to save lives from bad weather, but won’t even let the existence of bad weather be seen by the weather people.

@davidaugust But corporates and #media people are largely unaware of all this, and still crave the volume of their #birdsite #followers, even though there is no measure of actual eyeballs. There is little point in offering them Mastodon when the surrounding #ecosystem is still so poorly developed and the volumes so low. Which is a great pity.

@davidaugust it's really quite stunning to behold.

@davidaugust

Please, anyone who has a public-facing account that distributes vital information, get your own independent presence on the internet 🙏

Build a website, establish an RSS feed, start a Fediverse server.

These are all do-able without technical knowledge nowadays through various hosting services that do the tech stuff for you. It's not a nerdy thing to do this any more, it can be vital and (in this case) potentially a matter of life and death.

How do you say “our platform is nearly dead” without saying “dead”.

@davidaugust
All of our government accounts should stop relying on for-profit social media platforms imo.

@davidaugust okay but i dont think people really understand how awful this is. people already do not really pay attention to the weather, especially in places like the south in the US. sometimes the only way people will see weather alerts are through accounts like the NWS on social media, or alerts directly through their phone.

the NWS posts are so helpful. they tell you what counties will be affected, they provide a visual representation of it, and lists the amount of people affected and how many schools and hospitals are in the area. these are all valuable pieces of information for not just regular people, but first responders and anyone else in the area that could help. if a place is getting hit by a tornado and it has 3 hospitals, it is safe to assume that at least one of them will be okay and you can get victims there. it helps let people who are gonna be affected by disasters to start making a quick plan to put into action to save lives.

while twitter is such a horrible cesspool and horrible for everyone's health, it is such a priceless tool for those in the severe weather community and early warning systems like the NWS to not only notify people of incoming threats but also FIND incoming threats. it's one thing to just see that a tornado could be forming on weather radar, and it's a whole other thing if a storm spotter has visual confirmation of a tornado on the ground in that specific area.

@davidaugust The National Weather Service relies on Twitter to find out what the weather is? Shouldn't they have an army of meteorologists working that out for them?

@confusedbunny @davidaugust I know someone who works at NWS, and they do have a good crew, but the more ears and eyes out there the better. Especially in less populated areas.

@confusedbunny @davidaugust NWS SKYWARN is their army.
https://www.weather.gov/dvn/spotters
1000’s of volunteers reporting critical storm info…eyes & ears of warning forecasters…Real-time rpts critical in issuing warnings & saving lives. Spotters provide real-time ground-truth of local conditions hail size, wind speed, tornado development & local damage to help warn the public…spotters alwys critical link btw radar indctions of severe weather & what’s happening on the ground

@confusedbunny @davidaugust cost cutting (more work with less people) and price gouging... it's the capitalist profit path.

@Crochetcat @confusedbunny exactly right. No single agency can do what millions of people on millions of places can do, even if NWS is amazing at making those crowd insights usable.

Please thank you friend for me for their work.

@davidaugust

"You've got nice real-time information system here. It would be a shame if something happened to it"

@davidaugust @JonChevreau It's time for the #NWS to embrace the #fediverse. Come on over, y'all are welcome.

@ablackcatstail @davidaugust NWS?

@JonChevreau @davidaugust National Weather Service. It falls under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the US. I used to be a trained spotter.

@JonChevreau @ablackcatstail @davidaugust National Weather Service.

And I 100% agree. There is no excuse why NOAA or NWS or Department of Commerce (which NOAA and NWS fall under) can’t and shouldn’t stand up their own server. Calckey would be ideal since it has features like file-sharing and static page creation per accounts.

@davidaugust social.gov instance when?

@homegrown their post is not about _disseminating_ information, it is about _gathering_ it _from_ the public. A technical solutions alone cannot replicated what Twitter used to be. Nothing else ever has, yet.

Hopefully, someday in the future, alternatives will be built out.

@davidaugust

That's fair enough! I guess I was worried about accounts that do disseminate and didn't notice the difference in this case.

But the advantage of Twitter wasn't technical but simply the network effect of enough people congregating in one network? If people could move to another network that wasn't vulnerable to a single owners whims, it wouldn't be put in the position Twitter is now.

I've just made a design you can get in men's, women's and kids' t-shirts from my Threadless store for just $14US:

The Rate Limit Exceeded shirt: https://davidaugust.threadless.com/designs/rate-limit-exceeded/womens/t-shirt/fitted?variation=front&color=black

Thanks to @aleciabatson for suggesting I make a shirt.

#TwitterMigration #Twitter #RateLimitExceeded #TwitterDown

@davidaugust
very cute idea. carry on

@davidaugust nice

@BillMcGuire why thank you 😊

@davidaugust

I don't hand out compliments lightly, just so you know. At my advanced age, so little time....such a short life remains of Earth...etc. carry on

@Josoneet thank you! 😊

@davidaugust simply and incredibly sad - I remember the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, and the Colorado canyon wildfires where birdsite saved lives.

@lacouvee yes. So sad to see such a compelling life saving thing be dismantled.

@davidaugust also a communications tool that broke down barriers between people across social strata and allowed us to connect on an unprecedented level - especially in the beginning years.