Twitter is not the place to look for information in an emergency, Dutch politicians and a prominent online group said on Wednesday after an incident in which citizens were referred to the platform for updates during a major storm receive.
“We find it problematic that the government relies on Twitter to share critical information,” MP Nico Drost’s office said in an email to Reuters, citing issues of accessibility, accountability and reliability.
Twitter was not immediately available for comment.
The storm, which killed at least one person and uprooted dozens of trees in the province of North Holland, which includes Amsterdam, was the fiercest on record in the Netherlands in the summer.
The national emergency alert service sent a “push” notification to mobile phones, warning people in North Holland to stay indoors in wind gusts of more than 120 kilometers per hour (75 miles per hour) and to follow the regional fire brigade’s Twitter account to get updates.
Several politicians and digital rights group Bits of Freedom said it was inappropriate given that Twitter is a private company and the government has set up websites specifically for crisis communications.
“It’s ridiculous to use Twitter,” said Ber Engels, spokesperson for Bits of Freedom, citing problems with disinformation and how difficult Twitter is to reach quickly for people without an account. He also pointed out that the company recently capped the number of tweets that could be seen by anyone who didn’t pay for a subscription.
“You may see one tweet with great information from emergency services, but maybe there are 10 tweets that Twitter is prioritizing that contain completely wrong information,” he said.
The state fire brigade’s Twitter account is not verified. The latest tweet redirects users to a live blog hosted on the City of Amsterdam website.
Twitter’s communications account did not immediately respond to questions. An email sent to Twitter’s press email address generated a poop emoji auto-reply, in line with an announcement by Twitter CEO Elon Musk earlier this year.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
