Japanese disaster prevention X account can’t post anymore after hitting API limit - The issue has arisen after major Tsunami warnings have been issued in areas of Japan following a strong earthquake
dexerto.com
Japanese disaster prevention X account can’t post anymore after hitting API limit - The issue has arisen after major Tsunami warnings have been issued in areas of Japan following a strong earthquake::undefined
Why governments would ever use a private service for critical use baffles me.
Create your own emergency notification system!
They have one, but you also want information to be where people are. Especially if where people are is full of misinformation and rumours.
Japan has various earthquake notification systems. Tweets are just one more way to get the information to the people on a platform they use.
Those never turn out well.
Running their own mastodon instance should be viable though.
I remember seeing that they did have a fediverse account? This seems related to that
Yup see here:
https://lemmy.ca/post/3167523
It's also in the article linked above:
The Los Angeles/ California earthquake alert system worked just fine today.
Does that go through regular EAS? Wondering.
FWIW, Japan does have emergency alerts on iOS and Android, same thing as the Netherlands and the UK.
Is Mastodon even viable for time sensitive information? You need to wait for your instance to propagate the post from their instance which can take time.
As opposed to waiting until next month for your API call limit to reset?
I’d suggest they join a system that has users, proper SLA and an open frontpage.
As much as you might like Mastodon for being open, there are no SLA between instances. Bluesky or Threads likely do.
Not saying they shouldn’t start their own Mastodon, but not for emergency and time sensitive things. Or just for people who can’t access those other services. More options also mean more reach.
They made their own: https://unnerv.jp/@UN_NERV
Is Twitter/X viable for that? They can decide, and have, to randomly put information behind login walls.
They technically still have an SLA, but it’s unclear how much they respect it. And if X isn’t viable there are other platforms that are.
SLA? If that means something like "service level agreement" (I don't know, you didn't specify, I'm guessing) then I can still find examples where it falls well below what I would expect from a public service such that if there was an agreement in place that I would definitely be opposed to it as a tax payer.
I mean yes obviously, there are much more viable platforms like Mastodon, or even a self-hosted website.
And again, which was the point of my original comment, Mastodon may not do great when you need to propagate the post to other platforms. Unless you know something I don’t, Mastodon is horrible for time sensitive information, since it can take hours to get to your instance.
It's a secondary feature of a mysterious enterprise, unknown to americans, called "public media"
Just mass send SMSs in a given area
Cell phones already have the emergency alert system they could just use that.
Remember when just about every government employee was carrying around a BlackBerry device for official business?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
That's different. They had signed contacts and were legally obligated to provide service. Twitter is a free service that can be turned off at any time, with no notice, and is run by a schizophrenic twat with a god complex. It's just monumentally stupid to put lives on the line through a service like that.
I remember when they all loved the Nextel PTT phones.
This same issue happened during wildfire season in BC, Canada if I recall. A small polite media outrage over it, then forgotten.
Best case scenario would be an independent, international system developed within and for the emergency services community worldwide. Judging by the way firefighters travel internationally to fight forest fires worldwide, the community could be strong enough to support a solution like that, in my opinion.
It makes a lot of sense to post where the people are. Roll your own and note the people need your app/etc. granted, everyone is reading X on their smartphone and I’m 100% positive that Japan has the same kind of emergency broadcast system that we have in North America, but again that’s not meant for lots of messages, where a social networking site is.
Hate to say it but I would commonly get alerts from Twitter in the before times about local issues before I would get notified by my local government. Sadly they switched to encrypted radios so I can’t even keep up that way either these days
NERV isnt owned by gov and:
Because it's often easier, cheaper, and more efficient in cases that mirror public needs. Alerting, SMS, cloud storage, all are solved and competitively priced. And don't get me wrong, there ARE use cases for doing certain things custom or internally. There will need to be a mix of things.
The issue, is having an appropriate SLA and having the ability to hold companies accountable when it's not met. You need stated provisions that won't happen. Most commercial enterprises already operate under this model successfully, however many of the tools don't have SLAs around an earth quake. Most companies are willing to provide those provisions but it totally will come with extra cost which is typically not budgeted or sales teams or contracting officers are not equipped to have these conversations.
This is reason #856632 that you don't put vital government services on fucking Twitter.
Reminds me of Canada's emergency alert system.
A custody mixup happens a 5 hour drive away with the child last seen an hour ago? Top priority notification to every device capable of receiving SMS. And then a second one in French. And then a third one because they forgot to give any details about who or what to look for. And then a fourth one in French. And then a fifth one because they settled the mix-up. And then a sixth one in French.
Again, they are IMPOSSIBLE to turn off through general device settings because they're sent at the presidential level (aka. "nuclear launch detected"-level threat).
But an active shooter is going on a killing spree dressed as an officer? Better hope you've liked and subscribed to the right police association on Twitter! Because only one of them sent out anything, and nobody sent out an emergency notification at any level.
The difference being a team of 10 high up administrators took 1 hour to write each of the messages regarding the child.
Active shooter? Good luck getting ANY credible info until after police have killed them. IC, EOC, Unified Command all have to get together and push out the same message.
As others have said, there's a reason why you wait for verified information through proper channels.
How about "If you're around [TownName], get to shelter; people are being shot"?
They don't need long for an earthquake, then they shouldn't need long for a situation where people have already started dying.
... because PDF Warning: 1/2 of active shooter scenarios are over in 5 minutes. Like earthquakes, we don't get warning minutes before the event because of seismometers and +$100,000,000 in detection and automated warning systems. With easily verifiable information and buildings built to resist them.
If you're at a university, they're required to have mass alert systems. They also know their community and can push it to the people who were smart enough to give their college their actual phone number rather than some random shit or not bother to update it when they changed their number.
Everyone else though? Good luck dropping a geofenced 911 alert with actually relevant information besides what people should already know. Run, Hide, Fight. It's literally all that's sent out in any of those college emergency alerts. MAYBE a hall location/area if they got non-panicked lucky info with someone calling Security instead of 911.
After action reports, and debriefs are easily available for most of these events if you want to read them. The FBI and DHS have a LOT of info too.
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2022-042623.pdf/view
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nova_Scotia_attacks
This one lasted hours, and the killer was known to be impersonating a police officer.
If they could send an official tweet, they could use the Alert Ready system.
I don't think you understand how infrequent mass shooters are. Nor how predictable lol.
Are you quoting the timeline? Is the alert ready system something unique to Canadia? Does it geofence? Who needs to approve it? How does 911 or equivalent contact them. Do they have it? Do you need supervisor approval? Is your supervisor even there or is he shitting? Half your recent 911 calls in the last 5 minutes have hung up after 20 seconds. Most of them just screaming. Can you triangulate? Do you hang up? Are your other coworkers getting calls too or did you get the only person who had their phone in class because they didn't let their teacher take it?
Life is vastly more intricate and complicated than any of you think in serious situations.
During the hours and hours that the mass shooting took place, they could have used the Alert Ready system. The process to send out an Amber Alert is often measured in minutes rather than hours, which makes sense -- the process was designed to disseminate information as quickly as possible
I don't know about your phone, but at least in mine, they can in fact be turned off in general device settings. There's a "Wireless emergency alerts" section in the options, under which you can individually toggle Extreme Alerts, Severe Alerts, Amber Alerts, and Tests
Those toggles don't work because, in Canada, everything is sent at the Presidential Level, which might be above "Extreme Alerts".
I had to basically plug my phone into my computer to access adb (a command line tool) to deactivate them.
On my old phone, I was able to make the sound at least respect DND. I don't know if it's a Samsung vs. Google thing, or if it's an Android version thing.
Canada ignores complaints because if people got the alert, it's working.
Android ignores complaints because it's Canada's problem, and why would anyone want to completely deactivate all alerts? (Which I've done -- I don't even get texts anymore, which I actually want. But it was all or nothing.)
Oh, I didn't realize. I am in Canada, I turned them off a few months ago after my third amber alert this year for someone at the far end of the province (how likely am I to be able to help someone a 30 hour drive away???) and haven't gotten one since, but it must just be coincidence. That's annoying.
I guess it's up to the phone manufacturer to decide whether the presidential level can be turned off or not
Did you disable all texting in order to avoid the alerts? Just how often did you get them!
No, I disabled the emergency alert feature. I don't know if they come through over SMS in the end, or if they have their own special "lane" that got blocked.
I was hoping I'd still get the text, but I didn't.
The issue wasn't with the frequency (maybe one set every few months) so much as the issue was with my phone blaring an alarm at any hour of the day (say, 3am when you're asleep) that doesn't respect DND or volume settings on my phone.
That sounds like an effective solution… for things that are an immediate threat to the general population!
Yes, but not for custody disputes happening hours away with no information given about the suspect to help anyone search for the child! Lol
There are government text messages and local websites and all sorts of ways of reaching people. Unfortunately, X probably reaches ten times as many people. I think a diversified approach makes sense.
That being said, us gov has sent the text messages and that seems to be the best way to do it. Everyone has a phone. And if you don't, then you like to live on the edge.
All cell phones connected to a Japanese network received a notification regardless of their carrier, brand or what apps they installed.
This is already way better than whatever reach X provides.
Yeah, and kinda renders this thread and article pointless. X serves a redundant feature. Who cares if they treated a government like any other paying customer (like shit)? Bashing X is trendy and this article is just another one. I say this never having had Twitter, nor X, and I just don't care. I also don't own any MuskBrands™ stock or anything.
Yeah, I'm ashamed for all the text I've typed in now.
If so, then everything is done perfectly (why would they even bother with Twitter though).
Or any other service, that like Twitter, is a closed for profit service of a multinational for profit corporations.
The universe of stupidity is so endless that I don't know in which direction to fight really.
On most public\political subjects people I talk to think I'm delusional, they talk how "free markets don't work", "regulation prevents murderous chaos", "regulation prevents monopolies and wild capitalism" and so on.
But when it's this kind of thing, it suddenly becomes all right for them to offload a public service to a private company. And they suddenly become optimists. Same fscking people. I once had that from a communist.
I think it's primate psychology. Libertarian ideas are seen as delusional because these people fear chaos and the feeling of letting go. And for the same reason big corporations are seen as all right because they are familiar, there's the feeling of order and control. Primates flock to strength.
For the same reason some people defend copyright, I think. They want hierarchy, somebody owning every recognizable picture. A master in the house.
I thin libertarian is just anarchy by another name. Regulated free market is the way to go, if you want democracy, which is the least bad, but those regulations need constant adjustment. The system need constant weeding or corruption grows.
Force platforms like Twitter to support ActivityPub from governments. Then give alerts to citizens that way. Tear down the closed walls at least for government emergency alerts.
It annoys me that pretty much every local government agency is on Twitter and FB and don’t even really update their own websites. It’s a shame nobody uses RSS much these days.
Not being on Twitter in this case is like shouting "RUN AWAY!" in several empty rooms and not bothering to go into the room full of people.
Emergency broadcasts should be on all platforms. You need to maximize the chance of reaching people.
Yes, I understand that they’re on Twitter and fb because that’s where their audience is. But I don’t want to be required to use Twitter or fb to read their updates, so it would be nice if they also posted to some sort of neutral platform like idk, their own websites.
They posted on mastodon though
Yes, it’s popular in Japan. In the US you won’t find local police or emergency agencies on mastodon.
NERV is a private service, which rebroadcasts government emergency warnings with better representations.
It's almost like trying to run the world on social media was a shit tier idea.
It was a good way to offload responsibility for something actually working.
With social media the unreliability card has been played (by us, asocial nerds, killjoys and neckbeards) and beaten (by them, normal sane social successful people) 10+ years ago, so even when it's a serious role being discussed, that card can't be played again.
It worked pretty well for what it was created to do, then corporations and governments thought they could profit off of it. I assume they were also concerned that people were starting to talk about things they didn't want people to talk about, like their penchant for buying and selling children.
Which is the unknown variable in this conversation.
Say, for my ends social media never worked well.
It pains me to communicate with many (by my measure) friends and acquaintances, knowing that those are basically DMs on a site ran by somebody and hundreds (or maybe thousands) of employees can just read those DMs. Writing personal things there, because people refuse to be worried about being likely eavesdropped on.
In general the worst prison is the one you've built for yourself and locked yourself in. And to learn to sing one has to start singing.
I can understand what you mean.
I suppose on my end the reason that social media exists was as a forum for open communication with strangers that you would never actually meet in real life, generally to discuss interests and hobbies, or to just shoot the shit. I've never viewed it as a platform for replacing the methods we already had for communicating with people we did know in real life, such as phone, or just meeting with them face to face.
NERV already has a Mastodon server.
https://unnerv.jp/@UN_NERV
They already announced last year that they want to move away from Twitter.
https://unseen-japan.com/nerv-app-x-twitter-leaving/
They are using older version of Mastodon, in which it could lead to problems. They should update the software.
Gotta love stirring up old controversies for views because it’s fashionable to hate Twitter right now lol
Love it when corporations have more power than government entities.
The dystopian future is coming faster than ever
That crazy dystopian future where the government has to abide by the terms and conditions of private corporations. So wild. 🙄
Letting people senselessly get injured or die seems to be a common theme in Elon's ventures, so I'm not all that surprised about this.
I feel like this is warranted:
Fuck Elon.
Come on, this is totally the japanese government's fault. They should be aware of the limits of the services they use. How are we blaming Twitter for the incompetence of the japanese government? I get that we want to hate in Twitter but how incompetent is that team? A disaster prevention team didn't forsee the limits of the communication services they use?
I don't like Twitter but come on, stop shifting the blame.
Twitter worked. Elon bought it. Enshittification ensued. Twitter broke. Hmmm....
What an astute and elaborate explanation. Surely this is this answer and the guy you responded to is definitely over simplifying it.
Sounds like it's time for governments to get off Xitter.
Everyone should.
Twitter was useless but X is just a vanity project at this point
It definitely makes headlines worse anyway
The Evangelion app name is pure gold.
Fuck X and Musk.
What Evangelion app?
NERV is the name of the major organization in Evangelion. Gehirn Inc, the creator of this app, is the name of the predecessor to NERV in NGE. The font and red design are also the same.
Edit: Seems like the creator is a huge NGE fan and just went with it.
The tsunami warning app is named NERV as the devs are big fans of Evangelion.
Aaaaah ok
Just say twitter. Calling it "x" will literally always be silly and cumbersome.
I just call it twitter because I like dead-naming it.
Does that...do something?
No. But the asshole wants me to call it X, so I'm not.
Why is a critical service like disaster precention using an unreliable service like Twitter?
It's probably one of numerous ways they try and reach people. Wouldn't be surprised if they have it set up to spam alerts out through various mechanisms including social media. It's just that one platform is now complete dogshit. Maybe this failure will hasten Twitter's decline in Japan.
Why not? Wouldn’t you want information going out on every available service? They likely have info going out on Facebook as well.
Let me just pull out the old Pidgeon
@L4s Just FYI the NERV app mentioned on the article is not government official. (Althought I believe it uses government oficial APIs for earthquake detection)
That’s a bot account BTW. There’s a flag next to the name to indicate that but I guess it’s not visible on mastodon.
Yeah, it just added automatically when hitting Reply here on masto. TIL that if you delete the @ mention, it still becomes a thread :)
If you’re already replying to someone, the @ seems totally redundant.
It's just the default way on masto, I guess for microblogging historical reasons.
But the town square!!!!!111
This is how I feel...
Time to switch to mastodon.
Did you even bother to read the article?
Yes. They need to dump twitter
The problem here is they need to stay where the users are. It doesn't matter if Twitter is shit, as long as that's where people are the broadcasts need to be there to reach as many people as possible. Hell, if 90% of the people are on IRC then they should also support IRC. Dumping Twitter isn't going to make it better, it would only mean people are less likely to get warnings -> more people in danger.
At least with a half broken app there's still a chance.
Maybe, but a wouldn't it be way better to rely on a service every cellphone can receive by default, namely cell broadcast?
They even implemented this in Germany a few years ago after it has been available for twenty odd years.
Pretty sure emergency mobile broadcasts are included (at least by gov agencies) but you know what happens with these things that are only used for emergencies:
"It's annoying can't I turn it off?"
That's why I still think the more methods the better. It's probably one of the few reasons I'm okay with being bombarded with messages (not in jp, but literally got 2 earthquake warnings yesterday).
It looks like Japan's current implementation of their J-Alert system can start warning citizen about 2 seconds after the info is automatically received by the system. It warns them via nationwide loudspeakers, TV, radio, email, and cell phones. So they've got their bases covered, so to speak. They may be able to turn off alerts on their phone (the article doesn't say), but probably not on anything else. Definitely not the loudspeakers.
Kind of! Their Masto feed could be an RSS that feeds into all platforms. Decentralise!!!
Switch to != just use it on the side. Drop X, loudly make clear why, and point people to Mastodon.
https://unnerv.jp/@UN_NERV
NERV announcements got blocked? I guess he's not getting in the robot after all
Mastodon is a thing and they will own their instance.
Doesn't help if people don't use it.
That said, they should definitely stop using the thing formerly known as Twitter.
Use news outlets, public radio and TV and SMS alerts, those are "correct" ways of handling such situations, social media is not.
Shouldn't they use every means in their disposal? I know for myself I don't watch OTA or cable news, and I don't listen to public radio. Sure, SMS alerts are great, but the more widespread the messaging, the better.
Well the obvious answer would probably be yes, but I'm not so sure. We shouldn't make either institutions or people expect they can use and find this sort of information on social media, as social media is inherently unreliable for many reasons.
Mastodon can be used as a feed and integrated on websites easily. People can follow the latest news and reports about the disaster. They don't need to use mastodon or follow them. People need to know this is the right place to go to for a live ticker about a dessaster with an easy URL like disaster.gov.jp.
On top of this, they are independent with their own instance and don't rely on social media companies servers.
TV and radio are definitely not the right place anymore. Too many people live without them. SMS can be a thing. We
OK that makes a lot of sense. ;)
I see no reason not to include social media in the mix.
Which they already have
https://unnerv.jp/@UN_NERV
Great!
does mastodon have something like high priority/importance notifiication? i can imagine how such sms may come, but in order to get that notification via twitter or mastodon, what should you do? run the apps in background and check all notifs, like someone faved your food foto, and then you are like, okay, this wasn't it.
i just don't know how this works and really curious.
To be honest, social media including Mastodon is pretty awful for right-on-the-second emergency notifications but good for any extended information that wouldn't fit in those. Japan does have things in place for before then, similarly to America, but depending on the system you could link to that link just fine.
Fun fact: Germany has a mastodon instance and is using it.
Society if people read the article:
I read the title. Had some thoughts and opinions. After reading the article, the thoughts and opinions remain the same.
The article lists prices for next level api requests but it's 5000 dollars compared to the 100 that the non profit is already paying. They encouraged users to download their app to receive potentially life saving alerts.
I summed up the article in three sentences.
I'm not defending X or anything, I'm just asking people to read the damn article before going in with the obligatory "Why not Mastodon?" If they had read the article, they would've known that the project has a Mastodon account already and we wouldn't have been wasting our time.
Fair. The common user uses the easiest, most accessible programs and applications. At this time, lemmy or mastodon is not common.
Make a fancy colorful app with big buttons and fun pictures and people will flock here. From what I see, the common user base here is advanced level tech people.
That's ugly and scary, use this instead
That looks like it supports a few dozen people, maybe?
Not sure if it's the residential part
Slightly better ? still looks like a giant lawn with masturbatory buildings
Or how about this?
bugs. bugs everywhere. damage from roots. watering nightmare.
I don't think any more bugs than an average suburban neighborhood. If you look closely, it's a lot less dense than it appears, although even people who live in rural areas don't have some super insect problem. Damage from roots can be mitigated by using the proper construction materials. You don't have to water anything. It's outside.
I grew up in Jamaica. If that image comes with the eradication of mosquitoes, I'd be more open to the idea! Even the sturdiest materials, proper drainage, and regular pruning would eventually see erosion issues and excessive maintenance requirements. But I'm certainly not an engineer that could solve for all the long term concerns.
Here's some picture of commie blocks for reference I guess:
Aseptic lawns ? glass & metal buildings ? flying cars ? Surefire way of preventing me from reading any future article
If only there was some sort of legal agreement that should and could be reached when the govt wants to use some private platform to communicate something important to people. If only.
I can't even install software on my work computer unless IT and security have vetted it, questioned the company if necessary, and approved it. Government and corporate use of social media platforms should be no different. I bet the lack of privacy most of these platforms have wound be against the security policy of any company with a competent IT and/or compliance team. Imagine what social media would be like if all the corporate clients were just like "nope, not happening", hell, we might even have slightly more responsible social media platforms.
I remember reading that Twitter was pretty famous on Japan so that's why they are still there.
@L4s Gee thanks Elon
Well, they are no fascists so they can not expect preferential treatment from Elon.
well the Japanese Liberal Party has exclusively ruled Japan since WWII, and it might as well be considered a one party authoritarian state with a facade of democratic legitimacy. But yes, not strictly speaking fascist.
Don't forget the center left social libs snuck a PM in there for like an entire 2 years, just in time to preside over a giant natural disaster and get ousted again
I did forget. 2 out of 78.
Countries should have their own Mastodon instances. Then again, you can't trust governments.
You can trust them within a framework of expectations. Bureaucrats gonna bureaucrat, and it's not a monolith. The level of mistrust should rise steeply with the level of money that can be made by being in a given governmental position. Do I trust rando post office employee? Sure, they're just some schmuck with a job. Do I trust a congresscritter? Oh hell no.
I think the replies to this post really captures Lemmy's energy and I love it.
Have multiple accounts and rotate through them with each post. But then you have to make sure all of your followers are following all accounts. It's a shitty workaround but it's a shitty platform to begin with.
One likely reason they're still on X is so those that didn't get the memo to use their app or otherwise can't still can still get alerts. Switching to multiple accounts would require people who likely wouldn't notice to follow the others, and those that would do that would hopefully have downloaded the app. And yes, if a person isn't noticing they need to get the app they likely won't notice a critical alert, but when you're dealing with people's lives everything counts.
Right, because it's not on the platform to remain how it was. It's now the users' responsibility to completely change how they interact with the service so they can have the same functionality.
deleted
GTFO Shitter.
Holy shit, didn't know there is an actual Nerv created by an organisation named Gehirn. I mean, good what they are doing, just hope, that Gehirn doesn't get around to do the instrumentality project. Otherwise we will get problems with angels
Didn't they set up their own Mastodon instance? Hopefully they announced it nationwide so they could get as many people as possible on it.
I'm surprised they don't send faxes.
They do.
Boy do i have news for you)
Great work Elon ! Now Twitter's service has indirectly impacted the life of some people
Evangelion?
Governments should not depend on social media for vital communications, period.
So the Governments are going to start coming after corpoprations right?
It's not like anyone is dying over private social medias, right?
Netblocks reports the internet is down in that part of Japan, so...,