> Forgotten Twitter log-in details have been blamed for delaying a public correction to Hawaii's missile alert earlier this month.<p>Kind of floored that twitter is what the government has to use to put a notification out to it's public to provide critical information.<p>But then I continued to read and the article goes on to say that twitter and other social media was used by the Governor after the emergency text message was sent out, which means it obviously isn't a primary source of information.<p>So actually it's just clickbait journalism. Anyone panicking in the area would have almost certainly picked up a text before getting anything over twitter.<p>What is pretty terrible is that the governor of Hawaii most likely doesn't have 2FA on his twitter account and keeps the password on his phone, probably in a notes app of some kind, and is willing to publicly admit that.
It’s perfectly rational, efficient and good policy to use social media to reach people in an emergency.<p>Twitter has spent billions to deploy a worldwide network that people engage with to communicate short status updates. They also have the content, and scale to have a large percentage of the population actually familiar with how to use their tool.<p>To get an equivalent reach and scale and level of familiarity with a government run tool would be a $100 billion project doomed to fail.<p>Should Twitter be the <i>only</i> way that government reaches the population to deliver critical updates? Of course not, but it absolutely must be one of the primary ways, and in many cases because the system design of Twitter is so much better, it will be the channel with the most accurate and up-to-date data.<p>I mean the best part of that is then Homeland can designate Twitter as “critical national infrastructure” and put their agents in the data centers! </s>
I'm not sure what the other duties of this team are, so this is more of a generic thought, not specific to the Hawaii alert bungle.<p>Maybe it's important not to let any career exist that exercises its capabilities so infrequently. For example, firefighters train for massive disasters that rarely occur, but they more regularly fight smaller fires, and even more regularly respond to other problems like traffic accidents. So they are deployed on a very regular basis. Contrast that with the Minuteman missile teams who, I hope, have never ever fulfilled their role in actuality. Does this make them less effective?<p>Also makes me think about military efficacy. You can either go to war a lot, or find other ways to practice your skills. Which is why disaster response seems like such a natural fit for military.
Hmm, i just assumed that all executives - even in government - have their public-facing accounts managed by their communications/public relations team. Maybe this is one of those rare times that it would have been good to have a team of people have access to the account? ;-)
That's funny, I don't know my twitter password either. Nor do I know my facebook password, or most of my other passwords.<p>edit: I guess my point is that the word is not getting out about good password practices.
Nothing wrong with using twitter to spread important news around faster. But this article is as click bait as it gets honestly..
Next article on this subject will be titled something: Hawaii social media person delayed by additional 3 minutes because had to use the restroom during crisis