Social Security Administration Moving Public Communications to X

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.

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.

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!

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.

> 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

> 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.

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.

My private employer requires us to login with our credentials to view communications from our CEO. Seems shady to me.

When will the first lawsuit happen? Will it be conflict of interest or about a barrier to communication?

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

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

> 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?

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.

no one who voted for this regime is familiar with the idea of shame.

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.

Legality does not matter to this admin. Sooner or later people will realize that.

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).

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)

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.

> but what do I know about government efficiency, anyway?

Absolutely more than anyone at DOGE...