People in Missouri reported encountering a similar issue with the Missouri Highway Patrol in July 2023 sent out another Amber Alert push notification with a link to an X post. Residents also expressed that they would not be able to see the alert unless they were logged into the platform. “It was quite a change” from the way the warnings used to work, said Eric Brown, a Missouri Highway Patrol lieutenant who works in the public information and education division.
But the incident ultimately didn’t cause the Missouri Highway Patrol to abandon X as the preferred platform for Amber Alert push notifications. According to Brown, when
Several of the California Highway Patrol’s official X accounts have the same verification badge as the Missouri Highway Patrol, including the one is specifically dedicated to disseminating active alerts nationwide. However, not all California agency accounts appear to be verified, including what it looks like the official channel for the CHP’s Southern Division, which includes Los Angeles County.
When it was known as Twitter, it was X widely regarded as an essential part of the global disaster and emergency communications infrastructure. Government officials and agencies around the world used the service to disseminate information about hurricanes, mass shootings and other crises. Before Musk took over the platform in 2022, anyone could view public tweets in their browser, regardless of whether they had an account on the website or installed Twitter’s mobile app. (In 2015 the company reported that over 500 million people visited Twitter’s website each month without logging in.)
In June 2023 it was reported that X began blocking content Online appeared behind a login screen. Back then, Musk called The move was a “temporary emergency measure” put in place because X had “so much data plundered that service was impacted.” It’s unclear what exactly Musk was referring to, but in the same month he expressed concerns about AI companies like OpenAI allegedly scraping Twitter posts without prior permission.
It now looks like the decision to convert X into a more closed platform is stuck. According to tests conducted this week, X has continued to restrict what people without an account can see. WIRED, for example, looked at the X accounts of several of its staff reporters without logging in and was only able to display a selection of their popular posts and not a comprehensive chronological feed. It appears that accounts held by government entities are not restricted in this way; All posts shared from the California Highway Patrol Alerts account can be viewed without logging in.
Aside from allowing anyone to view content shared on the platform, Twitter also previously helped emergency communicators by giving them free access to its API, which Musk later revoked. The permitted organizations like the US National Tsunami Warning Center, which sends automatic warnings of potentially deadly natural disasters. Researchers and first responders could also use the API to monitor activity on Twitter and “gain important insights, such as identifying risk hotspots or combating misinformation,” Hughes says. “The role of the platform has changed as policies and public use have evolved, so its effectiveness may look very different today.”
Despite these disadvantages, X still remains an important platform for sharing information in emergency situations. In October, several government information officers issued an emergency call said PRWeek They planned to continue providing updates on But the incident in California this week highlights how government agencies can find themselves in trouble when third-party services that were once considered reliable later change their policies in unpredictable ways.
