Not taking account this specific case, but the general habit that news, be it small or big, are published first/only on Twitter/Facebook/IG/Tiktok etc. is bad and sad. It is bad both for readers and organizations themselves.
For readers, it is confusing and messy to know which platforms acts as a medium for communications. And usually these platforms require login, or nags for it, and doesn't show posts on chronologically to get clear understanding of the news events.
For organizations, there is a risk of shadow banning/closure of account, therefore not having any control of archivability and visibility of communications.
The best and clearest approach for communications probably is your own website with comms section, and post one-sentence summary + link to your website for a variety of social medias for greater visibility. There should be only one long-standing statement/source of truth for each newsworth event. Except of course if your strategy is to manipulate audience with confusion.
It's also contrary to a number of federal records act laws, conflict of interest and ethics laws, etc. Folks don't seem to care about that though...
Also good thing the primary audience for Social Security recipients is in the X user demographic? I gotta say this could have been an incredible opportunity to revolutionize technology for the people but it was squandered by self-dealing morons.
The people that assume the roles within government should speak directly through government-controlled domains exclusively. You’ve got those TLDs for a reason, folks. Nobody else has this right. It is the canonical source of truth because it is fully controlled by the government itself. The public are welcome to comment outside the domain and point to it like any other source, but unless you’re an official (holding office), what you say is your own opinion and covered by the first amendment. I’m not a lawyer, so this is just my opinion, but what officials say outside of their specifically assigned domains (which supposedly are funded by tax dollars and require oversight) should be considered personal opinion and not carry the weight of the office they hold and should be made to declare as much. Consider the Brown act or the emoluments clause within this context. There are certain things officials are on the hook for that the general public is not. Officials have restricted communications and declarations requirements that the public does not. And anything communicated over commercial channels outside of government oversight should be open to prosecution like anybody else. Blow your hot air where we know it’s within official capacity and on the record or post as a private citizen, like everyone else.
Government bureaucrat (Elon) owns a massive, private Social Media company. He has power to fire basically anyone, seemingly. Exclusivity agreements with private companies have NO FUCKING PLACE in public governments. If the owner of said platform is actually part of the government, it's pure corruption.
Elon: divest from your private assets or get the fuck out of the government. Otherwise you're a corrupt official.
The world's richest man is also the most powerful bureaucrat in the world, and he's self dealing to his own company which is arguably the most powerful propaganda machine ever invented.
It applies when it can be said literally: gaming communities. There people will complain about athletes pushing their edge
For example, the 2019 blizzcon SC2 finals where Zerg overran with a busted Nydus meta. You can't blame Reynor & Dark pushing their advantage to reach each other in finals. The game went on to be patched
Same goes with hating draws in chess. Players are trying to win a tournament, they'll make the moves they feel will make that happen
Another example: hating on Protoss in TvP in broodwar. The game won't be patched. If you can't deal with it then hate the game, not the Protoss
> Elon: divest from your private assets or get the fuck out of the government. Otherwise you're a corrupt official.
You're directing this at Elon - but you are aware just about every single congress critter, and every other high-level government official holds private assets and profits off of them during their tenure in the government... right?
> Exclusivity agreements with private companies have NO FUCKING PLACE in public governments.
I hope you were this upset about Cheney as well. What about Palantir and their army of lobbyists? Oracle and theirs? Sig Sauer and theirs? Lockheed Martin and theirs? AWS and theirs? I can go on forever... This is super common in government, and no it's not limited to one party or another. It's everywhere.
It is wrong every time. But only now we get the all-caps writing and chest thumping only the likes of reddit can be proud of.
There are so many things wrong with your comment, lets list a few:
1. False equivalence: Elon Musk's interaction with the federal government is unprecedented and comparing it to lobbying of companies is hysterically bad faith.
2. Appeal to hypocrisy: whether or not someone cares about Cheney or others profiting or doing bad things in government, that has no impact on the argument against Musk.
3. Ad hominem: yes, yes, only the likes of reddit, except here we are, not on reddit.
4. Tone policing: the content of ones argument is completely irrelevant to how emotional the present it or how emotionally they feel about it. They may thump their chests as much as they like.
your post reeks of fascist populism:
- de-humanizing language
- we are not that bad, others are/were doing it too (this is mostly flawed, as is your comparison)
You can't really tell these days. Pretty sad reality we're living in. Everything we disagree with is levied as the worst evil the world has ever seen. Nuance doesn't exist, and there's no room for healthy disagreement. The boogeyman is everywhere it seems.
The word "critter" might be used differently in your area. Perhaps you are using it casually, not meaning to dehumanize other people.
But be aware that what is going on in our country is fascist populism. Fascism did not start with mass killings. It started with calling other human beings critter, vermin, pest that we need to get rid off. We disallow others to speak up in public and deport them. Deportations already lead to deaths depending on your political, sexual, religious,... orientation. Fascist regimes start with language and are fueled by deaths.
Calling congresspeople critters (or swamp people, reptiles, snakes, clowns, vermin, etc) is not a lurch towards fascism; it's the status quo. Dehumanizing congress has been a national pastime since congress started getting dysfunctional in the late 20th century. "Congresscritter" has been part of the vernacular since at least the 70s (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/congresscritter)
This is just a blanket excuse to call things fascist when they aren't. Want regulations? Care about your community? Think that the US should be run on popular vote rather than the electoral college? You're a fascist because fascists are anti-free market, love their country, and are populist. Sure, those are very extreme versions of the above, but fascism doesn't appear overnight, now does it?
If you've been around for a while, and are willing to take off the rose-colored-glasses momentarily, you will realize it is not unprecedented.
Some of us have been howling about these issues for decades.
Who were the primary benefactors of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act? What about the CHIPS Act? Follow the money and you will be completely god smacked at the insanity that's being going on right under people's noses.
The riot is quelled by drawling people into their camps... left or right, red or blue, us vs. them.
The "recognition" is dependent on which party is in office. That's the main point - the hypocrisy. As soon as Democrats win the Oval Office again, the screaming will cease, just as it always has - just as it always will.
"Our Side" can do no wrong, it's "your side" that's corrupt and evil. Republicans strongly asserted the Biden Administration was corrupt - and this was brushed aside by Democrats. Same as with Trump the first time around, Obama before him, Bush, so on and so forth.
People are being manipulated by their leaders because it's politically convenient and raises a lot of money.
> Republicans strongly asserted the Biden Administration was corrupt - and this was brushed aside by Democrats
As it should, republicans strongly asserting something does not mean much. It usually just mean they find the politician too popular. They "strongly assert" about 20 false accusations any given week. That is how the whole conservative machine works.
They admire Trumps criminality and frauds. As far as republicans are concerned, these make him cool and manly.
Yes it is unprecedented. I did not said there was no corruption before, I said not it is very blatant. Even for Trump himself - Trump 1.0 was massively corrupt, Trump 2.0 is even more corrupt.
The self dealing Musk does was not the norm previously, actually. Open successful extortion/destruction of law companies that sued politicians was not norm, now it is. President selling cars was not the norm, now it is. I could go on and on.
What's notable is that the current crop of people who were just elected includes people who said they were going to introduce an insider-trading bill and then became some of the most prolific ones once in office. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/us/politics/congress-stoc...
Well, AOC has been threatening for several years to introduce a bill to curb this. But... hasn't, and I'd be willing to bet we already know why. Many others have promised the same and done the same as well...
Nancy Pelosi is perhaps the most prolific insider trader of our lifetime. None of this is new... it's been going on since before any of us were born.
It should be put to an end - but we can't pretend the current administration is doing something so abhorrent and clutch our collective pearls in shock. We can't hold one party (that we disagree with) to a higher standard than our "own" people. That's hypocritical and not a foundation upon-which agreement and consensus can be formed.
I'm not aware this has made it to the floor yet. If it has, I stand corrected. I interned in government long ago, but learned many bills are written for constituent consumption and never are intended to get a vote.
As-is it likely won't pass because it limits spouses and dependents as well - which will get into lots of complicated personal rights issues. The same rights issues that have been argued in favor of keeping the status quo (in regards to sitting members). Spouses and dependents didn't "sign up" to become government officials, so it'll be difficult to limit their liberties in this way. I do support the sentiment, however.
> But... hasn't, and I'd be willing to bet we already know why.
The Speaker of the House controls what bills get put to a vote. In the time AOC has been in Congress, that has been either a Republican, who would never put that bill to a vote; or Pelosi, who also said she would not do it.
I'm interpreting your statement about "only now" as an implication that there was no dissent about corrupt government officials prior to Musk purchasing the country. Is that actually what you intended to say?
I have no idea but I find it hard to believe that announcing government policy on a billionaire's platform is a really bad idea when a basic web page could do the same thing. How hard could it be to emulate a message stream on a .gov site that has the features of X? There have to be dozens of open source packages out there that could do it, and then they control it. At any point, twitter could shut down the stream and it would take weeks to months to set up a site to replace it.
I don't think it's the first time. Ever since all these stupid idiotic SMS confirmations became a trend they've all effectively required you to accept a {Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile} EULA.
That said though EULAs aren't law. If it's just a contract between two parties, you are free to violate it and they are free to violate it as well.
Twitter has a Government EULA so agencies do have official accounts in line with regulation. That said, the agency itself is responsible for preserving its records in a way required by law, and is also typically required to post official requests and changes to the Federal Record.
the question wasn't about the (government) account holder's EULA, the question was whether citizens have to accept Twitter's regular EULA in order to view the posts.
can I scrape government Twitter accounts and mirror them without paying Elon for API access? because I can scrape ssa.gov just fine.
Forget scraping. I can't read Twitter, as I don't have an account. A normal person is now locked out of SSA communications unless they sign up for Twitter.
Good point. Unsure. I guess it depends on whether embedded content implies users have accepted a EULA? I'd imagine they will cross-post to their web page as well, but who knows.
Worse is having to personally agree to third-party privacy policies to use tools at work. For example, if you use google docs, you have to agree to google's privacy policy, which can match at work and outside work behavior.
schools do the same thing, but 1000% worse.
Oh, and online tax stuff or dmv? all logs into google.
Seems like pointless friction to have to register and log into an online account just to view press releases by a government agency. Maybe there would be an exception for government agencies’ posts, but it doesn’t look like it.
Surely it is a coincidence that this would also likely boost account registration numbers and ad impressions for Musk’s company.
Elon is just stacking reasons for nationalization of X on top of his growing list of reasons to nationalize SpaceX.
(Nothing to do with his political views, but moves like this or meddling in foreign affairs with Starlink after customers had purchased the devices free and clear)
someone who is permanently banned from Twitter and not happy about official public communications being behind a paywall/registration required situation on X might have standing if they’re literally not allowed to make an account to view them.
That's me. I'm one of those people who signed up, never posted a single comment, but somehow got banned for life. What am I supposed to do now?
Edit: I should note that I am not allowed to follow anyone because of the ban.
X.com was probably never the exclusive domain of thoughtful, well-intentioned posters.
But lately has turned into a cesspool. Everytime I go on, I’m assaulted by fight videos, gambling ads, porn bots, ragebait, and the worst extreme takes from the left and the right.
Its very design — optimized for brief casual messaging — makes it difficult to do thoughtful discourse. And it became significantly worse when it monetized engagement; my “For You” page is flooded with rando bluecheck accounts who went viral for posting screenshots of other viral tweets
Same here. When I hear people talk about how awful some platform is, knowing that it optimizes for their engagement, it feels like an accidental admission of their secret desires.
> Everytime I go on, I’m assaulted by fight videos, gambling ads, porn bots, ragebait, and the worst extreme takes from the left and the right.
You seem to be describing my reddit experience to a "T".
I created a brand new account recently to get away from all of the doom-n-gloom politics that polluted my feed to the point of being just downright frustrating to look at. It took all of a week to be right back to where it was, despite my best efforts to join and engage in subs that have literally zero to do with politics. What the hell does bread making have to do with seeing 843 unfavorable pictures of Trump on /r/pics every single day?
I wonder what opportunity this creates for fraud. My grandpa doesn't even know what a tweet is. How hard would it be for a phishing campaign to convince my grandpa to click a fake tweet that says, "In order to continue benefits, please reconfirm your SSN here"?
Of course it creates a massive opportunity for fraud. But no one in this administration cares about fraud and scams, haven't you seen the President's namesake crypto shitcoin? Or his namesake fraudulent university? Or his namesake fraudulent charity?
The way this administration sees it, separating suckers from their money is virtuous -- if you're smart enough to defraud them, you should be rewarded for your efforts. But if you're dumb enough to be conned, you got what was coming to you. Be smarter next time or perish.
But just think how much more valuable rug-pull coins/advertising became on X. A whole new target market of people being forced to move there and forced to view the algo.
I think this still increases the risk of an individual falling for a scam. If the official press releases are happening there, it's not crazy for a senior to think other communication might as well.
Seems like you could sue. You are paying into SS, and that should give anyone "standing" to open up a lawsuit. Seems like a great opportunity for a young law firm to make a name for themselves.
You should look up the targeting of law firms by Trump to understand why that’s unlikely. He’s found a method to destroy any law firm that opposes him, it’s obviously corrupt but Republicans don’t care so it works. My understanding is he passes an executive order that bans their staff from federal court buildings.
This is, honestly, an insult to convicted criminals, who can at least reform. Trump is not simply a convicted criminals, he shows no remorse for his actions and eagerly resumes his dubious and potentially illegal behavior at the earliest opportunity.
how is it not legal? If you want to read their PR pieces go to the website and click on News or Press or whatever it is. Nothing is hidden from you because you're not a twitter user and you, as an individual, were never told of a PR anyway. It went to media agencies or via "dear colleague" letters (not exactly sure what that is but I'm 49 and have been paying taxes forever yet have never seen one in my mail ever)
Probably under several laws. But I know one: Government officials (of which, Musk is now one) cannot block or limit speech they agree with, particularly when petitioning the government, which is explicitly protected under the 1st amendment.
If Musk wants to run an official government communication channel, he will have to follow the laws that apply to communication with the government, of which there are many.
> If Musk wants to run an official government communication channel, he will have to follow the laws that apply to communication with the government, of which there are many.
What happens if he doesn't follow those laws? Is there any way that he would face justice considering the current situation?
I fully expect to be disappointed but what should happen if Dems ever get back into power (and that's a definite `if`) is to immediately cut off all dealings this corrupt guy's companies. No more government agencies on twitter, no more massive government subsidies for his companies, no more special regulatory treatment, and so on. Dems being Dems, they will probably just muddle around and do absolutely nothing to address all of this insane corruption, if they even get a chance to.
"The lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you."
> So the only correct thing to do is vote for Republicans?
How could this possibly be the conclusion to someone saying the Dems are what led us to Trump?
You are supposed to vote for the best choices you have, or write someone in if you want. It isn't reasonable to vote for the worst choice and expect better results. Also, never let perfect be the enemy of "not as bad as the other choice", unless you want to see the country/economy/world burn.
Maybe just say what you mean instead of posting reactions. ie if you think the Dems brought about Trump say why, and whatever you think the better idea than voting for them is.
The Republican Party changed dramatically in 2016. They became something they never were before and due to the populist trends in the county, they won the election. There is a very high chance that the next democrat contenders will be very different from what we saw in 2016 and 2024.
We can’t judge how same or different the DNC will be in 2028 much like you could not see Trump as a contender when Romney faced off Obama in 2012.
So, I’d say your estimate of “zero chance” is too early. Let’s see who the dems field in the midterms first.
We can make an informed judgement because we’ve seen the Democratic Party refuse to to change throughout the last ten years of Trump candidacy and election… not to mention the issue that likely cost them the election to begin with.
Biden quitting was a big change. Not enough to win the 2024 election for Harris, but still a change. I think failure is the biggest motivation for change, and the Dems have failed bigly. I think there's a decent sized chance they run a more populist candidate in 2028 and maybe the mid-terms too.
This isn't just a US phenomenon. Similar in Europe with far-right authoritarian parties' rise having been made inevitable by their "labour" parties. Though the Dems case is significantly worse, hence why Trump is worse than anything we've seen in Western-Europe.
Look, what you're saying is obviously true, but you've got to look at the bigger picture. Trump didn't show up out of nowhere, there's at least 2 decades of relevant US governments. You can't just ignore all of that context.
The Dems too, with very few exceptions (the Reps also used to have such exceptions pre-MAGA) only care about their own, individual power. 2016 says it all. If they were any better, they could've picked a hundred other candidates who'd have beaten Trump, and if he'd lost it's almost unthinkable the Reps would've nominated him again in 2020. They didn't, they knowingly picked one of the very few options who at the time would lose. They picked her for pure individual power structural reasons. Because that's what they do. 2024 all but confirmed that. They're only interested in image and optics to preserve their own standing, or they would've cut Biden far earlier.
In HN terms: Stop anthropomorphizing Larry Ellisson. He's been a lawnmower for decades. And the same goes for the Dems.
You claim the dems could have picked a hundred other candidates than Hillary that could have easily defeated Trump. That is some grade A revisionist history.
If you recall, the Republicans had a very large field (15?) candidates initially, and Trump was seen even by Republicans as an entertaining but embarrassing candidate. Yet Trump beat every one of those well-financed, established GOP candidates.
> Do people not realize it's the Dems that got the US Trump?
The GOP has the power to stand up to Trump immediately with legislation or with impeachment. The Democrats are already on record as voting for impeachment. Trump has continued to do lots of stuff that is impeachable with lots of evidence. Had the GOP impeached Trump when they had the chance, they would have been rid of him by now.
In addition, with this last election, a bunch of idiotic people sat on their ass going "But they're both the same." or "I don't get into politics." As if their "status quo" status was somehow a virtuous deed instead of a disgusting malfeasance cloaked in laziness.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." -- John Philpot Curran, 1790
And this is exactly this what has got us here. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You know the Larry Ellison lawnmower one, right? That's what you're doing with the GOP, and really, with voters. Actions have consequences. Both in 2016, and 2024, if the Dems wanted to win, they could've. If they wanted to stop Trump, they could've. They didn't. They had the power and intelligence to do so. Whether people vote or not vote is a consequence of the last 20 years of history. It's a few billion parameter model. Given the parameters, the outcome is set. The Dems for decades provided inputs to these parameters that were always going to lead to this outcome.
For what it's worth, I was being a bit provocative. As it's not the Dems who got us Trump - it's the Dems and the Reps who got us Trump.
Transitioning from detailed "Dear Colleague" circular letters to tweets seems like a great loss in transparency, but what do I know about government efficiency, anyway?
The Trump administration put a mid-level bureaucrat in charge of SSA after he violated a bunch of policies to try to give DOGE access to sensitive data and then publicly complained about being investigated for it. This guy has proven himself to be thoroughly incapable of doing such an important job in a disciplined, non-partisan manner. He admitted to cutting off the contract that allows births an deaths to be automatically registered in Maine (which caused parents of newborns to go in person to social security offices) because he didn't like how the governor of Maine spoke to Trump. He's pulled a bunch of other stunts, like threatening to shut down social security payments because a judge issued an order he didn't like.
It's emblematic of what's happening across the government. Serious people are being replaced by incompetents who are there purely for their loyalty to the President and have no scruples or sense of public service.
What’s interesting is their reasoning is that there used to be an entire team who did nothing but maintain the website and post announcements nobody read. This entire team was fired and replaced by someone who posts on X.
There is a decent amount of logic here, and I think it would have happened even if a neutral party owned X/Twitter
Really what they should do is use some management site to simultaneously post to Facebook/X. What will be really stupid is when Democrats take office, and then they change to some other site, and then Republicans take office, and they return everything to X.
The goal should be to maximize access at minimal cost. Social media posts maximize access, and it's not hard to post to multiple sites at once. There are a million different tools for it, and it could be as simple as the social media maintainer posting twice
The official word of US government must be on government servers and platforms/sites or press channels. Use Twitter for promotional utility and reach, but not authority.
I am a citizen and I refuse to recognize Twitter as the voice of government.
It's worth having a webmaster for public organizations.
If it's too hard to manage a simple website that serves the needs that X is filling, we need to address it in the web developer community. You shouldn't need a team of React experts to tell people it's a snow day, or post updates to changing SSA policy.
X is a commercial product which can become inaccessible based on login status, no? Do we really expect people to have to log in to view public information.
so, per the article, they'll post a link to a PR in a tweet instead of informing media directly or via a "dear colleague" letter. Does anyone really care or am i supposed to be outraged? Was anyone in the general public getting these PR pieces or "dear colleague" letters directly from the IRS anyway?
The replies to every popular political tweet these days is all hard-right propaganda. Getting ALL older people onto that platform would be a bigger propaganda win for the right than Fox News.
i've commented about a half dozen times so this will be the last one. Just click the link and read it. They're talking about informing media of press releases. No one needs to be on twitter/x to read a PR, just go to the website. To be informed of a new PR, as an individual, the standard media companies inform their viewers/readers same as they always have.
Can you quote the exact line for us that says this? Since the article seems to have lines that say the exact opposite in very clear language at the very top of the page.
You’re asking the wrong question. The department of justice should have stepped in so you would not have to ask, but they’re in it for good. Judges would be responsible for answering, but they have been warned to not interfere with the presidents agenda, or face personal consequences.
So there is nobody left to answer it.
More than that, should Musk one day not be in power, he would still have the capability to limit the visibility of, censor, ban, or otherwise manipulate the official communications of (at least one, I assume there will be more) a department of the federal government.
Imagine someone hijacking the account and making “announcements” … that’s why they have official government websites.
I’ve always found it amusing how much world leaders actually use Twitter for communications. The fact that a private citizen can purchase the platform and do whatever they want with it is exactly why it’s a bad idea.
Not to mention this is a lame way to increase signups and AU metrics, holding a gun to an old person’s head.
> It could also impact people receiving social security benefits who rely on the letters for information about access benefits. “Do they really expect senior citizens will join this platform?”
That's exceptionally ageist. Looking at the analytics on some of our apps which trend towards an older audience it does not seem like they, as a class, have any particular difficulty in using digital platforms.
I also don't see how this is significantly different from their "dear colleague" letters which seem to be simply distributed on their website. I would not call this page a "better platform" for this information:
> On the call, Kerr-Davis sounded resigned as she relayed news of the changes. “I know this probably sounds very foreign to you. It did to me as well,” she said. “It’s not what we are used to, but we are in different times now.”
Yes. Expect change. In particular, use data driven decision making, and don't resist new communications technologies for parochial reasons.
That all being said, there was certainly a better way to do this, but the position that nothing should change or the audience is too old to use digital technologies is somewhat absurd. This would all be so much easier if Musk didn't have some reason to hamfistedly involve himself in government.
That guy so badly wants the world to commemorate a statue to him. I think we should just do it to shut him up for a while.
> I also don't see how this is significantly different from their "dear colleague" letters which seem to be simply distributed on their website. I would not call this page a "better platform" for this information:
That page is public and accessible by anyone on the internet without an account. Not the case with Twitter.
Share posts on any social media forums, sure, but a data-driven decision would not put information EXCLUSIVELY on a private, shared, for-provite platform owned by an unelected government official. That's just corruption. It's pretty fucking simple.
A data-driven outcome would be "hey, we support hundreds of millions of people with different preferences and abilities, so we should probably use multiple platforms and ensure our information is as easy to access as possible." Which, btw, is not costly to do.
> would not put information EXCLUSIVELY on a private
That's where they're being released. Literally anyone can copy that to whatever platform they want. This is how "press releases" work in the first place. Is there some assumption that the general public is refreshing the press release page every day to be informed?
I personally built much of the current incarnation of blog.ssa.gov CMS and have seen how they gain traffic to that site.
It makes very little sense to me to have that information's authoritative origin be on x, but I'm genuinely curious how this would be an improvement over the current situation where SSA publishes to their various web sites.
Perhaps you can explain why they should post stuff to X instead of either the CMS tied to the www site or the blog? After all "Literally anyone can copy that to whatever platform they want" so putting pushing things like that to various social media platforms has already been going on for a while.
What advantage are you seeing to have them switch from their current CMSs to x?
> and have seen how they gain traffic to that site.
And how has that been?
> but I'm genuinely curious how this would be an improvement over the current situation where SSA publishes to their various web sites.
I didn't claim it would be an improvement. I claimed that it wouldn't actually make much difference. In particular invoking the "age" of the audience and imputing an inability to read anything other than these blogs is a red herring.
> Perhaps you can explain why they should post stuff to X instead of either the CMS tied to the www site or the blog?
So that they can downsize the communication staff from 700 people down to 50.
> After all "Literally anyone can copy that to whatever platform they want" so putting pushing things like that to various social media platforms has already been going on for a while.
Precisely. So why is defending the previous mechanism so important? Is the goal to inform the public or to have a nice CMS with tons of blogs in it? It's a nice feather in your cap but as a tax payer you can understand questioning it's ultimate value, can you not?
> What advantage are you seeing to have them switch from their current CMSs to x?
Less staff. It's hard for me to understand why 700 people were needed to maintain a blog that gets updated once a week.
If you want to be concerned with something you should have really paid more attention to how they're changing phone support and engaging in "anti-fraud" there. I think the lede has been intentionally buried with this outrage bait. These are _press releases_. It's the smallest part of the change and one that's likely to have minimal impact to outcomes.
Because communicating changes to people as a group means less support needed one on one when people miss the communication, when changes are made, etc. This is like business 101 of how companies get more efficient.
"Less communications with customers, pushing the impact of changes onto support staff" is about the dumbest efficiency push anyone can make. Why do we now have to explain/defend the concept of why businesses make press release and that press releases are actual a useful thing? What is going on in this country?
> So that they can downsize the communication staff from 700 people down to 50.
Can you explain, in any shape or fashion how posting to X helps with this? Why not have a bare bones website that they can push whatever shit they were going to post on X? Why engage in blatant corruption and favoritism?
How does this implicates broadcast press releases?
I can see posts. You seem to have agreed to this.
Then you say there are additional features which are not available. I'm asking how those additional features are relevant to the problem? They don't seem relevant to the problem.
You also can't send DMs when logged in. Does this impact press releases from the SSA in some way? I get that it's not _fully featured_ but is that actually required for this _particular use case_?
That link shows me 6 posts all from April 8. "Highlights" shows me another ~10 from the last year or so. "Replies" and "media" require an account. Should I expect to see more from a 16 year old account?
The relevance of search is obvious. Replies are used to work around length limits, clarify, correct, and update. Replies and parents are invisible if not logged in. This is not hypothetical.[1][2]
Not taking account this specific case, but the general habit that news, be it small or big, are published first/only on Twitter/Facebook/IG/Tiktok etc. is bad and sad. It is bad both for readers and organizations themselves.
For readers, it is confusing and messy to know which platforms acts as a medium for communications. And usually these platforms require login, or nags for it, and doesn't show posts on chronologically to get clear understanding of the news events.
For organizations, there is a risk of shadow banning/closure of account, therefore not having any control of archivability and visibility of communications.
The best and clearest approach for communications probably is your own website with comms section, and post one-sentence summary + link to your website for a variety of social medias for greater visibility. There should be only one long-standing statement/source of truth for each newsworth event. Except of course if your strategy is to manipulate audience with confusion.
It's also contrary to a number of federal records act laws, conflict of interest and ethics laws, etc. Folks don't seem to care about that though...
Also good thing the primary audience for Social Security recipients is in the X user demographic? I gotta say this could have been an incredible opportunity to revolutionize technology for the people but it was squandered by self-dealing morons.
those laws only apply to competitors to Twitter.
The people that assume the roles within government should speak directly through government-controlled domains exclusively. You’ve got those TLDs for a reason, folks. Nobody else has this right. It is the canonical source of truth because it is fully controlled by the government itself. The public are welcome to comment outside the domain and point to it like any other source, but unless you’re an official (holding office), what you say is your own opinion and covered by the first amendment. I’m not a lawyer, so this is just my opinion, but what officials say outside of their specifically assigned domains (which supposedly are funded by tax dollars and require oversight) should be considered personal opinion and not carry the weight of the office they hold and should be made to declare as much. Consider the Brown act or the emoluments clause within this context. There are certain things officials are on the hook for that the general public is not. Officials have restricted communications and declarations requirements that the public does not. And anything communicated over commercial channels outside of government oversight should be open to prosecution like anybody else. Blow your hot air where we know it’s within official capacity and on the record or post as a private citizen, like everyone else.
I think Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman is a solid thesis on the sudden rise of communication and its steady decay.
In less than 100 years we went from sending news via envoys or on horseback to compressing it and sending it over a wire.
The only time you would ever go to the effort to send news, back then, was if it was important or vital, but crucially it was actionable.
The decay comes from using the same channels, or even creating new channels, to disseminate info that is not meant to be actioned but simply consumed.
The regulations around that production were stripped away and so was the trust that the info you now consume is valid.
Himmelsbriefs started around the 6th century.
This is because the platforms deincentivize posts that link to the original source by pushing them lower in the algorithm.
Because the best way would be to put the content on the official pages and post the link (+ relevant excerpt) to social media.
But that takes engagement away from the sites and they hate that.
It's almost like we need a Twitter-style platform that also acts as an RSS reader!
The problem here boils down to Expanse-style "communication buffers", that stores and routes messages broadcasted/singlecasted by entities.
Government bureaucrat (Elon) owns a massive, private Social Media company. He has power to fire basically anyone, seemingly. Exclusivity agreements with private companies have NO FUCKING PLACE in public governments. If the owner of said platform is actually part of the government, it's pure corruption.
Elon: divest from your private assets or get the fuck out of the government. Otherwise you're a corrupt official.
Absolutely insane.
The world's richest man is also the most powerful bureaucrat in the world, and he's self dealing to his own company which is arguably the most powerful propaganda machine ever invented.
It's difficult to not despair in such a time.
He is a corrupt official. He is awarding contracts to SpaceX as he is disassembling all agencies meant to combat fraud and corruption.
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> Otherwise you're a corrupt official.
Seems like he fits in real well where he’s at.
Between nazi salutes and buying votes, being a corrupt official seems in character, if not expected.
I wonder if that’s the point of having a borderline villainous public image - people are used to your antics and more likely to ignore an extra crime.
"don't hate the player, hate the game" I feel likely sums up what would be his position on your comment
It’s funny how I’ve literally not once heard someone who wasn’t an across-the-board asshole say this phrase
It applies when it can be said literally: gaming communities. There people will complain about athletes pushing their edge
For example, the 2019 blizzcon SC2 finals where Zerg overran with a busted Nydus meta. You can't blame Reynor & Dark pushing their advantage to reach each other in finals. The game went on to be patched
Same goes with hating draws in chess. Players are trying to win a tournament, they'll make the moves they feel will make that happen
Another example: hating on Protoss in TvP in broodwar. The game won't be patched. If you can't deal with it then hate the game, not the Protoss
And that kind of half-assed flippancy is exactly why he needs to be removed from any government authority immediately.
Hate what game? Democracy?
Regulatory Capture?
Oh well in that case I’ll echo sorcerer-mar’s comment.
It's not a game when that someone can simply ignore or rewrite the rules at will.
He is not stuck in the game. He has agency, more than most.
“Richest man on planet must… (checks) succumb to corruption to survive! No ethical way forward!”
A strange game; the only winning move is not to play
> Elon: divest from your private assets or get the fuck out of the government. Otherwise you're a corrupt official.
You're directing this at Elon - but you are aware just about every single congress critter, and every other high-level government official holds private assets and profits off of them during their tenure in the government... right?
> Exclusivity agreements with private companies have NO FUCKING PLACE in public governments.
I hope you were this upset about Cheney as well. What about Palantir and their army of lobbyists? Oracle and theirs? Sig Sauer and theirs? Lockheed Martin and theirs? AWS and theirs? I can go on forever... This is super common in government, and no it's not limited to one party or another. It's everywhere.
It is wrong every time. But only now we get the all-caps writing and chest thumping only the likes of reddit can be proud of.
There are so many things wrong with your comment, lets list a few:
1. False equivalence: Elon Musk's interaction with the federal government is unprecedented and comparing it to lobbying of companies is hysterically bad faith.
2. Appeal to hypocrisy: whether or not someone cares about Cheney or others profiting or doing bad things in government, that has no impact on the argument against Musk.
3. Ad hominem: yes, yes, only the likes of reddit, except here we are, not on reddit.
4. Tone policing: the content of ones argument is completely irrelevant to how emotional the present it or how emotionally they feel about it. They may thump their chests as much as they like.
your post reeks of fascist populism: - de-humanizing language - we are not that bad, others are/were doing it too (this is mostly flawed, as is your comparison)
Not everything you disagree with is "fascism". We expect maturity around here.
I think they were making a bad comparison purposefully mocking you to make a point.
You can't really tell these days. Pretty sad reality we're living in. Everything we disagree with is levied as the worst evil the world has ever seen. Nuance doesn't exist, and there's no room for healthy disagreement. The boogeyman is everywhere it seems.
The word "critter" might be used differently in your area. Perhaps you are using it casually, not meaning to dehumanize other people. But be aware that what is going on in our country is fascist populism. Fascism did not start with mass killings. It started with calling other human beings critter, vermin, pest that we need to get rid off. We disallow others to speak up in public and deport them. Deportations already lead to deaths depending on your political, sexual, religious,... orientation. Fascist regimes start with language and are fueled by deaths.
Calling congresspeople critters (or swamp people, reptiles, snakes, clowns, vermin, etc) is not a lurch towards fascism; it's the status quo. Dehumanizing congress has been a national pastime since congress started getting dysfunctional in the late 20th century. "Congresscritter" has been part of the vernacular since at least the 70s (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/congresscritter)
Fascism does not appear overnight. It grows slowly, quietly, and steadily, until it errupts with the open campaign of a despot.
This is just a blanket excuse to call things fascist when they aren't. Want regulations? Care about your community? Think that the US should be run on popular vote rather than the electoral college? You're a fascist because fascists are anti-free market, love their country, and are populist. Sure, those are very extreme versions of the above, but fascism doesn't appear overnight, now does it?
To be fair, the level of open corruption in this particular government is pretty unprecedented.
If you've been around for a while, and are willing to take off the rose-colored-glasses momentarily, you will realize it is not unprecedented.
Some of us have been howling about these issues for decades.
Who were the primary benefactors of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act? What about the CHIPS Act? Follow the money and you will be completely god smacked at the insanity that's being going on right under people's noses.
The riot is quelled by drawling people into their camps... left or right, red or blue, us vs. them.
Do you want a cookie? Just because it’s taken others longer to recognize corruption doesn’t lessen the seriousness of the situation.
The "recognition" is dependent on which party is in office. That's the main point - the hypocrisy. As soon as Democrats win the Oval Office again, the screaming will cease, just as it always has - just as it always will.
"Our Side" can do no wrong, it's "your side" that's corrupt and evil. Republicans strongly asserted the Biden Administration was corrupt - and this was brushed aside by Democrats. Same as with Trump the first time around, Obama before him, Bush, so on and so forth.
People are being manipulated by their leaders because it's politically convenient and raises a lot of money.
More lazy both sides nonsense. Dems don’t put Elon in charge and let him tear the gov up.
Dems don’t tell ice to kidnap people in plain clothes
Just because corruption exists everyone doesn’t mean it exists equally. You’re pushing a lazy train of thought
> Republicans strongly asserted the Biden Administration was corrupt - and this was brushed aside by Democrats
As it should, republicans strongly asserting something does not mean much. It usually just mean they find the politician too popular. They "strongly assert" about 20 false accusations any given week. That is how the whole conservative machine works.
They admire Trumps criminality and frauds. As far as republicans are concerned, these make him cool and manly.
Yes it is unprecedented. I did not said there was no corruption before, I said not it is very blatant. Even for Trump himself - Trump 1.0 was massively corrupt, Trump 2.0 is even more corrupt.
The self dealing Musk does was not the norm previously, actually. Open successful extortion/destruction of law companies that sued politicians was not norm, now it is. President selling cars was not the norm, now it is. I could go on and on.
What's notable is that the current crop of people who were just elected includes people who said they were going to introduce an insider-trading bill and then became some of the most prolific ones once in office. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/05/us/politics/congress-stoc...
Well, AOC has been threatening for several years to introduce a bill to curb this. But... hasn't, and I'd be willing to bet we already know why. Many others have promised the same and done the same as well...
Nancy Pelosi is perhaps the most prolific insider trader of our lifetime. None of this is new... it's been going on since before any of us were born.
It should be put to an end - but we can't pretend the current administration is doing something so abhorrent and clutch our collective pearls in shock. We can't hold one party (that we disagree with) to a higher standard than our "own" people. That's hypocritical and not a foundation upon-which agreement and consensus can be formed.
You mean, this bill she hasn't introduced, and hasn't worked on since 2023? https://ocasio-cortez.house.gov/media/press-releases/ocasio-...
I'm not aware this has made it to the floor yet. If it has, I stand corrected. I interned in government long ago, but learned many bills are written for constituent consumption and never are intended to get a vote.
As-is it likely won't pass because it limits spouses and dependents as well - which will get into lots of complicated personal rights issues. The same rights issues that have been argued in favor of keeping the status quo (in regards to sitting members). Spouses and dependents didn't "sign up" to become government officials, so it'll be difficult to limit their liberties in this way. I do support the sentiment, however.
> But... hasn't, and I'd be willing to bet we already know why.
The Speaker of the House controls what bills get put to a vote. In the time AOC has been in Congress, that has been either a Republican, who would never put that bill to a vote; or Pelosi, who also said she would not do it.
Pelosi isn’t even the most prolific inside trader in the house of reps. This sort of ignorant and lazy argumentation is part of the problem.
I'm interpreting your statement about "only now" as an implication that there was no dissent about corrupt government officials prior to Musk purchasing the country. Is that actually what you intended to say?
Is this the first time a citizen has been required to accept an EULA to receive official government communications?
I have the feeling that the legality of this involves a bunch of concepts I don't know about.
E.g., what constitutes an official communication, and how accessible they're legally required to be.
I have no idea but I find it hard to believe that announcing government policy on a billionaire's platform is a really bad idea when a basic web page could do the same thing. How hard could it be to emulate a message stream on a .gov site that has the features of X? There have to be dozens of open source packages out there that could do it, and then they control it. At any point, twitter could shut down the stream and it would take weeks to months to set up a site to replace it.
I don't think it's the first time. Ever since all these stupid idiotic SMS confirmations became a trend they've all effectively required you to accept a {Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile} EULA.
That said though EULAs aren't law. If it's just a contract between two parties, you are free to violate it and they are free to violate it as well.
Contracts (government-enforceable agreements) are private law.
If an attorney sues the king, they get banished from courts. There is no law.
Twitter has a Government EULA so agencies do have official accounts in line with regulation. That said, the agency itself is responsible for preserving its records in a way required by law, and is also typically required to post official requests and changes to the Federal Record.
the question wasn't about the (government) account holder's EULA, the question was whether citizens have to accept Twitter's regular EULA in order to view the posts.
can I scrape government Twitter accounts and mirror them without paying Elon for API access? because I can scrape ssa.gov just fine.
Forget scraping. I can't read Twitter, as I don't have an account. A normal person is now locked out of SSA communications unless they sign up for Twitter.
Good point. Unsure. I guess it depends on whether embedded content implies users have accepted a EULA? I'd imagine they will cross-post to their web page as well, but who knows.
My private employer requires us to login with our credentials to view communications from our CEO. Seems shady to me.
> My private employer requires us to login with our credentials to view communications from our CEO. Seems shady to me.
I assume the last sentence was insincere.
Your employer requires you to log in to view internal communications. Not public. And citizens employ the government. Not vice versa.
Worse is having to personally agree to third-party privacy policies to use tools at work. For example, if you use google docs, you have to agree to google's privacy policy, which can match at work and outside work behavior.
schools do the same thing, but 1000% worse.
Oh, and online tax stuff or dmv? all logs into google.
Seems like pointless friction to have to register and log into an online account just to view press releases by a government agency. Maybe there would be an exception for government agencies’ posts, but it doesn’t look like it.
Surely it is a coincidence that this would also likely boost account registration numbers and ad impressions for Musk’s company.
When will the first lawsuit happen? Will it be conflict of interest or about a barrier to communication?
who will judge? who will enforce the judgement?
Elon is just stacking reasons for nationalization of X on top of his growing list of reasons to nationalize SpaceX.
(Nothing to do with his political views, but moves like this or meddling in foreign affairs with Starlink after customers had purchased the devices free and clear)
someone who is permanently banned from Twitter and not happy about official public communications being behind a paywall/registration required situation on X might have standing if they’re literally not allowed to make an account to view them.
That's me. I'm one of those people who signed up, never posted a single comment, but somehow got banned for life. What am I supposed to do now? Edit: I should note that I am not allowed to follow anyone because of the ban.
> What am I supposed to do now?
Are you willing to sue? Consult lawyers. EFF would be a good start.[1]
[1] https://www.eff.org/pages/legal-assistance
X.com was probably never the exclusive domain of thoughtful, well-intentioned posters.
But lately has turned into a cesspool. Everytime I go on, I’m assaulted by fight videos, gambling ads, porn bots, ragebait, and the worst extreme takes from the left and the right.
Its very design — optimized for brief casual messaging — makes it difficult to do thoughtful discourse. And it became significantly worse when it monetized engagement; my “For You” page is flooded with rando bluecheck accounts who went viral for posting screenshots of other viral tweets
That's the worst part - it's not even original slop. There's so much more of it than one can ever block.
It got so bad I started reading paper books in my off time again.
The algorithm feeds you whatever you like, follow different people and engage with the content you find interesting, it will adapt.
I login daily and see none of that.. I follow tech nerds and only see that type of content
Same here. When I hear people talk about how awful some platform is, knowing that it optimizes for their engagement, it feels like an accidental admission of their secret desires.
The secret desires of the default, untuned FYP? Those categories are known quantities to the social algo curious.
Can simply make a new genpop type Twitter account and immediately see them for yourself, the uncurated experience is heartbreaking.
> Everytime I go on, I’m assaulted by fight videos, gambling ads, porn bots, ragebait, and the worst extreme takes from the left and the right.
You seem to be describing my reddit experience to a "T".
I created a brand new account recently to get away from all of the doom-n-gloom politics that polluted my feed to the point of being just downright frustrating to look at. It took all of a week to be right back to where it was, despite my best efforts to join and engage in subs that have literally zero to do with politics. What the hell does bread making have to do with seeing 843 unfavorable pictures of Trump on /r/pics every single day?
I wonder what opportunity this creates for fraud. My grandpa doesn't even know what a tweet is. How hard would it be for a phishing campaign to convince my grandpa to click a fake tweet that says, "In order to continue benefits, please reconfirm your SSN here"?
Of course it creates a massive opportunity for fraud. But no one in this administration cares about fraud and scams, haven't you seen the President's namesake crypto shitcoin? Or his namesake fraudulent university? Or his namesake fraudulent charity?
The way this administration sees it, separating suckers from their money is virtuous -- if you're smart enough to defraud them, you should be rewarded for your efforts. But if you're dumb enough to be conned, you got what was coming to you. Be smarter next time or perish.
This is the new morality.
But just think how much more valuable rug-pull coins/advertising became on X. A whole new target market of people being forced to move there and forced to view the algo.
read the article, these are press releases for the general public not requests or information for individuals.
I think this still increases the risk of an individual falling for a scam. If the official press releases are happening there, it's not crazy for a senior to think other communication might as well.
Good thing that if they sign up Elon has totally cleaned Twitter up from all the bots!
The demographic shift to a bunch of lovely young ladies on X is because of how much the next generation values maximal truth seeking
This is incredibly stupid. Anyone who voted for this administration ought to be ashamed.
no one who voted for this regime is familiar with the idea of shame.
How is this legal ? Can I sue because of this as a non Twitter user ?
Seems like you could sue. You are paying into SS, and that should give anyone "standing" to open up a lawsuit. Seems like a great opportunity for a young law firm to make a name for themselves.
You should look up the targeting of law firms by Trump to understand why that’s unlikely. He’s found a method to destroy any law firm that opposes him, it’s obviously corrupt but Republicans don’t care so it works. My understanding is he passes an executive order that bans their staff from federal court buildings.
Legality does not matter to this admin. Sooner or later people will realize that.
That's what happens when you elect a convicted criminal.
kind of seems obvious when you think about it.
This is, honestly, an insult to convicted criminals, who can at least reform. Trump is not simply a convicted criminals, he shows no remorse for his actions and eagerly resumes his dubious and potentially illegal behavior at the earliest opportunity.
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Especially given Musk's propensity to ban users from Twitter.
> How is this legal ?
Why do you keep asking this when these illegal acts have been happening every day for months? Genuinely, did you just awake out of a coma?
> Can I sue because of this as a non Twitter user ?
Good luck finding a lawyer, as they're almost certainly going to lose their job if the suit turns out remotely succesful.
Meta/Facebook will sue them for you. Forcing people to signup for a social media service seems winnable with their breed of lawyers (scum).
The company run by a guy who has been busy publicly sucking up to trump and bribing him is going to take a stand over this? I doubt it.
I'm not seeing an awful lot of evidence of powerful tech companies standing up against these guys in court right now.
The FTC trial for FB is in a few days
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_v._Me....
How is Meta getting sued standing up to anything?
FWIW I just contacted my reps, but since they are all chickins**ts these days, I doubt anything will happen.
But with the ones in my State, I have a tiny chance they will try and stop this.
Far more likely that Zuck will make some kind of deal to make Facebook another "official platform"
Too soon for login.facebook.gov I think
how is it not legal? If you want to read their PR pieces go to the website and click on News or Press or whatever it is. Nothing is hidden from you because you're not a twitter user and you, as an individual, were never told of a PR anyway. It went to media agencies or via "dear colleague" letters (not exactly sure what that is but I'm 49 and have been paying taxes forever yet have never seen one in my mail ever)
Probably under several laws. But I know one: Government officials (of which, Musk is now one) cannot block or limit speech they agree with, particularly when petitioning the government, which is explicitly protected under the 1st amendment.
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/government-use-of-so...
If Musk wants to run an official government communication channel, he will have to follow the laws that apply to communication with the government, of which there are many.
> If Musk wants to run an official government communication channel, he will have to follow the laws that apply to communication with the government, of which there are many.
What happens if he doesn't follow those laws? Is there any way that he would face justice considering the current situation?
> If you want to read their PR pieces go to the website
They will not exist anymore. Literally the first words of TFA:
> The Social Security Administration will no longer be communicating with the media and the public through press releases [...]
“Communicating with the media”! This is ridiculous
/enough inet today
The only good thing about this is that it will be reversed by the next administration. Of course, that's only if we have another election...
I fully expect to be disappointed but what should happen if Dems ever get back into power (and that's a definite `if`) is to immediately cut off all dealings this corrupt guy's companies. No more government agencies on twitter, no more massive government subsidies for his companies, no more special regulatory treatment, and so on. Dems being Dems, they will probably just muddle around and do absolutely nothing to address all of this insane corruption, if they even get a chance to.
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> Do people not realize it's the Dems that got the US Trump?
You mean?
- Everything the Democrats screw up on is the Democrats fault.
- Everything the Republicans screw up on is the Democrats fault.
So the only correct thing to do is vote for Republicans? This is why America can't have nice things.
"The lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you."
> So the only correct thing to do is vote for Republicans?
How could this possibly be the conclusion to someone saying the Dems are what led us to Trump?
There are two parties, and no realistic path for a third. So blaming one is essentially endorsing the other.
That doesn’t follow. Are we not supposed to expect better of our representatives?
You are supposed to vote for the best choices you have, or write someone in if you want. It isn't reasonable to vote for the worst choice and expect better results. Also, never let perfect be the enemy of "not as bad as the other choice", unless you want to see the country/economy/world burn.
Maybe just say what you mean instead of posting reactions. ie if you think the Dems brought about Trump say why, and whatever you think the better idea than voting for them is.
The Republican Party changed dramatically in 2016. They became something they never were before and due to the populist trends in the county, they won the election. There is a very high chance that the next democrat contenders will be very different from what we saw in 2016 and 2024.
We can’t judge how same or different the DNC will be in 2028 much like you could not see Trump as a contender when Romney faced off Obama in 2012.
So, I’d say your estimate of “zero chance” is too early. Let’s see who the dems field in the midterms first.
We can make an informed judgement because we’ve seen the Democratic Party refuse to to change throughout the last ten years of Trump candidacy and election… not to mention the issue that likely cost them the election to begin with.
Biden quitting was a big change. Not enough to win the 2024 election for Harris, but still a change. I think failure is the biggest motivation for change, and the Dems have failed bigly. I think there's a decent sized chance they run a more populist candidate in 2028 and maybe the mid-terms too.
Don't vote for dems because they caused Trump to happen, so instead vote for... Trump directly?
it is in fact the Republican party and its voters that got the US Trump
Which was made inevitable by the Dems.
This isn't just a US phenomenon. Similar in Europe with far-right authoritarian parties' rise having been made inevitable by their "labour" parties. Though the Dems case is significantly worse, hence why Trump is worse than anything we've seen in Western-Europe.
Look, what you're saying is obviously true, but you've got to look at the bigger picture. Trump didn't show up out of nowhere, there's at least 2 decades of relevant US governments. You can't just ignore all of that context.
The Dems too, with very few exceptions (the Reps also used to have such exceptions pre-MAGA) only care about their own, individual power. 2016 says it all. If they were any better, they could've picked a hundred other candidates who'd have beaten Trump, and if he'd lost it's almost unthinkable the Reps would've nominated him again in 2020. They didn't, they knowingly picked one of the very few options who at the time would lose. They picked her for pure individual power structural reasons. Because that's what they do. 2024 all but confirmed that. They're only interested in image and optics to preserve their own standing, or they would've cut Biden far earlier.
In HN terms: Stop anthropomorphizing Larry Ellisson. He's been a lawnmower for decades. And the same goes for the Dems.
You claim the dems could have picked a hundred other candidates than Hillary that could have easily defeated Trump. That is some grade A revisionist history.
If you recall, the Republicans had a very large field (15?) candidates initially, and Trump was seen even by Republicans as an entertaining but embarrassing candidate. Yet Trump beat every one of those well-financed, established GOP candidates.
Yes, voting Republican to avoid Trump is a much better plan.
You're seeing things that aren't there, I wouldn't suggest anything of the sort.
What are you suggesting then? Who should we vote for?
*crickets*
Republicans wouldn't push so hard to disenfranchise people from voting if what you are pushing was true.
> Do people not realize it's the Dems that got the US Trump?
The GOP has the power to stand up to Trump immediately with legislation or with impeachment. The Democrats are already on record as voting for impeachment. Trump has continued to do lots of stuff that is impeachable with lots of evidence. Had the GOP impeached Trump when they had the chance, they would have been rid of him by now.
In addition, with this last election, a bunch of idiotic people sat on their ass going "But they're both the same." or "I don't get into politics." As if their "status quo" status was somehow a virtuous deed instead of a disgusting malfeasance cloaked in laziness.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt." -- John Philpot Curran, 1790
And this is exactly this what has got us here. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
You know the Larry Ellison lawnmower one, right? That's what you're doing with the GOP, and really, with voters. Actions have consequences. Both in 2016, and 2024, if the Dems wanted to win, they could've. If they wanted to stop Trump, they could've. They didn't. They had the power and intelligence to do so. Whether people vote or not vote is a consequence of the last 20 years of history. It's a few billion parameter model. Given the parameters, the outcome is set. The Dems for decades provided inputs to these parameters that were always going to lead to this outcome.
For what it's worth, I was being a bit provocative. As it's not the Dems who got us Trump - it's the Dems and the Reps who got us Trump.
I guess it says a lot about how desperate musk is to find users for his propaganda toy.
Transitioning from detailed "Dear Colleague" circular letters to tweets seems like a great loss in transparency, but what do I know about government efficiency, anyway?
> but what do I know about government efficiency, anyway?
Absolutely more than anyone at DOGE...
The Trump administration put a mid-level bureaucrat in charge of SSA after he violated a bunch of policies to try to give DOGE access to sensitive data and then publicly complained about being investigated for it. This guy has proven himself to be thoroughly incapable of doing such an important job in a disciplined, non-partisan manner. He admitted to cutting off the contract that allows births an deaths to be automatically registered in Maine (which caused parents of newborns to go in person to social security offices) because he didn't like how the governor of Maine spoke to Trump. He's pulled a bunch of other stunts, like threatening to shut down social security payments because a judge issued an order he didn't like.
It's emblematic of what's happening across the government. Serious people are being replaced by incompetents who are there purely for their loyalty to the President and have no scruples or sense of public service.
I thought this would take at least another month.
Maybe next month it’ll be announced that Social Security payments will only be available through the upcoming payment feature of X.
This must be the whole 'fixing corruption' thing people have mentioned over and over again. It's not corruption if you're just blatant about it.
What’s interesting is their reasoning is that there used to be an entire team who did nothing but maintain the website and post announcements nobody read. This entire team was fired and replaced by someone who posts on X.
There is a decent amount of logic here, and I think it would have happened even if a neutral party owned X/Twitter
They could easily centralize government updates and such. TBH I’d rather they use a Squarespace site than X.
Really what they should do is use some management site to simultaneously post to Facebook/X. What will be really stupid is when Democrats take office, and then they change to some other site, and then Republicans take office, and they return everything to X.
The goal should be to maximize access at minimal cost. Social media posts maximize access, and it's not hard to post to multiple sites at once. There are a million different tools for it, and it could be as simple as the social media maintainer posting twice
This is an inversion.
The official word of US government must be on government servers and platforms/sites or press channels. Use Twitter for promotional utility and reach, but not authority.
I am a citizen and I refuse to recognize Twitter as the voice of government.
The Social Security Administration Is Gutting Regional Staff and Shifting All Public Communications to X
It's worth having a webmaster for public organizations.
If it's too hard to manage a simple website that serves the needs that X is filling, we need to address it in the web developer community. You shouldn't need a team of React experts to tell people it's a snow day, or post updates to changing SSA policy.
X is a commercial product which can become inaccessible based on login status, no? Do we really expect people to have to log in to view public information.
so, per the article, they'll post a link to a PR in a tweet instead of informing media directly or via a "dear colleague" letter. Does anyone really care or am i supposed to be outraged? Was anyone in the general public getting these PR pieces or "dear colleague" letters directly from the IRS anyway?
>so, per the article, they'll post a link to a PR in a tweet instead of informing media directly
I cannot see where the article says they'll post a link to a PR, in fact it seems to say they will stop doing PRs altogether.
Did I misread?
https://archive.is/cY57S
https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-investors-elon-musks-x-re... Just supply your SSN to Saudi Arabia and all will be well.
The replies to every popular political tweet these days is all hard-right propaganda. Getting ALL older people onto that platform would be a bigger propaganda win for the right than Fox News.
i've commented about a half dozen times so this will be the last one. Just click the link and read it. They're talking about informing media of press releases. No one needs to be on twitter/x to read a PR, just go to the website. To be informed of a new PR, as an individual, the standard media companies inform their viewers/readers same as they always have.
You're wrong. "We are no longer planning to issue press releases..."
Can you quote the exact line for us that says this? Since the article seems to have lines that say the exact opposite in very clear language at the very top of the page.
Does this seriously not violate a law? (a question I keep asking)
We all keep asking… and I think we all know the answer
It may if you could not view any PR except through twitter but that's not what's happening here. so, no it doesn't IMO.
/not a lawyer.
> as it shifts its public communication exclusively to X
Where will you be viewing them, then?
You’re asking the wrong question. The department of justice should have stepped in so you would not have to ask, but they’re in it for good. Judges would be responsible for answering, but they have been warned to not interfere with the presidents agenda, or face personal consequences. So there is nobody left to answer it.
They really should be doing POSSE instead.
https://indieweb.org/POSSE
In that case, does it mean you can't ban people from X anymore? If it's the official government communication channel?
The SSA cannot. They also can't block people.
Musk can do both for them, though.
More than that, should Musk one day not be in power, he would still have the capability to limit the visibility of, censor, ban, or otherwise manipulate the official communications of (at least one, I assume there will be more) a department of the federal government.
X won't ban people, but they can ban account.
Sounds like a great idea. TV media is more and more becoming a frontend for X posts anyway.
Imagine someone hijacking the account and making “announcements” … that’s why they have official government websites.
I’ve always found it amusing how much world leaders actually use Twitter for communications. The fact that a private citizen can purchase the platform and do whatever they want with it is exactly why it’s a bad idea.
Not to mention this is a lame way to increase signups and AU metrics, holding a gun to an old person’s head.
100% illegal.
X might well become the WeChat of USA.
That is in fact what Musk is trying to do. The "everything app"
as soon as someone frames ISP peering as border crossing we'll have a Great Firewall too.
> It could also impact people receiving social security benefits who rely on the letters for information about access benefits. “Do they really expect senior citizens will join this platform?”
That's exceptionally ageist. Looking at the analytics on some of our apps which trend towards an older audience it does not seem like they, as a class, have any particular difficulty in using digital platforms.
I also don't see how this is significantly different from their "dear colleague" letters which seem to be simply distributed on their website. I would not call this page a "better platform" for this information:
https://www.ssa.gov/news/advocates/#advocates2024
> On the call, Kerr-Davis sounded resigned as she relayed news of the changes. “I know this probably sounds very foreign to you. It did to me as well,” she said. “It’s not what we are used to, but we are in different times now.”
Yes. Expect change. In particular, use data driven decision making, and don't resist new communications technologies for parochial reasons.
That all being said, there was certainly a better way to do this, but the position that nothing should change or the audience is too old to use digital technologies is somewhat absurd. This would all be so much easier if Musk didn't have some reason to hamfistedly involve himself in government.
That guy so badly wants the world to commemorate a statue to him. I think we should just do it to shut him up for a while.
> I also don't see how this is significantly different from their "dear colleague" letters which seem to be simply distributed on their website. I would not call this page a "better platform" for this information:
That page is public and accessible by anyone on the internet without an account. Not the case with Twitter.
Share posts on any social media forums, sure, but a data-driven decision would not put information EXCLUSIVELY on a private, shared, for-provite platform owned by an unelected government official. That's just corruption. It's pretty fucking simple.
A data-driven outcome would be "hey, we support hundreds of millions of people with different preferences and abilities, so we should probably use multiple platforms and ensure our information is as easy to access as possible." Which, btw, is not costly to do.
> Not the case with Twitter.
I view content on X without an account every day.
> would not put information EXCLUSIVELY on a private
That's where they're being released. Literally anyone can copy that to whatever platform they want. This is how "press releases" work in the first place. Is there some assumption that the general public is refreshing the press release page every day to be informed?
> Which, btw, is not costly to do.
Have you worked in government before?
I personally built much of the current incarnation of blog.ssa.gov CMS and have seen how they gain traffic to that site.
It makes very little sense to me to have that information's authoritative origin be on x, but I'm genuinely curious how this would be an improvement over the current situation where SSA publishes to their various web sites.
Perhaps you can explain why they should post stuff to X instead of either the CMS tied to the www site or the blog? After all "Literally anyone can copy that to whatever platform they want" so putting pushing things like that to various social media platforms has already been going on for a while.
What advantage are you seeing to have them switch from their current CMSs to x?
> and have seen how they gain traffic to that site.
And how has that been?
> but I'm genuinely curious how this would be an improvement over the current situation where SSA publishes to their various web sites.
I didn't claim it would be an improvement. I claimed that it wouldn't actually make much difference. In particular invoking the "age" of the audience and imputing an inability to read anything other than these blogs is a red herring.
> Perhaps you can explain why they should post stuff to X instead of either the CMS tied to the www site or the blog?
So that they can downsize the communication staff from 700 people down to 50.
> After all "Literally anyone can copy that to whatever platform they want" so putting pushing things like that to various social media platforms has already been going on for a while.
Precisely. So why is defending the previous mechanism so important? Is the goal to inform the public or to have a nice CMS with tons of blogs in it? It's a nice feather in your cap but as a tax payer you can understand questioning it's ultimate value, can you not?
> What advantage are you seeing to have them switch from their current CMSs to x?
Less staff. It's hard for me to understand why 700 people were needed to maintain a blog that gets updated once a week.
If you want to be concerned with something you should have really paid more attention to how they're changing phone support and engaging in "anti-fraud" there. I think the lede has been intentionally buried with this outrage bait. These are _press releases_. It's the smallest part of the change and one that's likely to have minimal impact to outcomes.
Because communicating changes to people as a group means less support needed one on one when people miss the communication, when changes are made, etc. This is like business 101 of how companies get more efficient.
"Less communications with customers, pushing the impact of changes onto support staff" is about the dumbest efficiency push anyone can make. Why do we now have to explain/defend the concept of why businesses make press release and that press releases are actual a useful thing? What is going on in this country?
> So that they can downsize the communication staff from 700 people down to 50.
Can you explain, in any shape or fashion how posting to X helps with this? Why not have a bare bones website that they can push whatever shit they were going to post on X? Why engage in blatant corruption and favoritism?
> I view content on X without an account every day.
How? I can see direct links, but I can't search or look at replies without an account.
How does this implicates broadcast press releases?
I can see posts. You seem to have agreed to this.
Then you say there are additional features which are not available. I'm asking how those additional features are relevant to the problem? They don't seem relevant to the problem.
You also can't send DMs when logged in. Does this impact press releases from the SSA in some way? I get that it's not _fully featured_ but is that actually required for this _particular use case_?
Open incognito mode and go here: https://x.com/socialsecurity?lang=en
What exactly is not working for you?
That link shows me 6 posts all from April 8. "Highlights" shows me another ~10 from the last year or so. "Replies" and "media" require an account. Should I expect to see more from a 16 year old account?
The relevance of search is obvious. Replies are used to work around length limits, clarify, correct, and update. Replies and parents are invisible if not logged in. This is not hypothetical.[1][2]
[1] https://x.com/SocialSecurity/status/1909710597324964065
[2] https://xcancel.com/SocialSecurity/status/190971059732496406...
you claimed you can do something. I ask you how, and you deflect. can you do it or not?
> I view content on X without an account every day.
So you view the stuff that doesn't require an account - many want to see the stuff that does.
Flip it around, what's a good reason for not ALSO posting on the government website other than pushing people to use twitter?