back to article We're not saying Uncle Sam has lost control on Twitter, but US Embassy in Riyadh just did a shout out for oatmeal

History is "a series of lies agreed upon," as nineteenth century orator Wendell Phillips phrased an adage employed by Napoleon, among others. Online history doesn't even require agreement. It can be changed with a click. Justin Littman, a software developer and librarian in the ‎Scholarly Technology Group at George Washington …

  1. jake Silver badge

    "Official Government Twitter Accounts"? WTF?

    Am I the only one who sees anything wrong with this concept?

    1. Youngone Silver badge

      Re: "Official Government Twitter Accounts"? WTF?

      I'm not too worried about it, as in a few years Twitter will have run out of money and folded.

      Although yes, it's a stupid idea.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "Official Government Twitter Accounts"? WTF?

        >Twitter will have run out of money and folded

        ITYM "Run out of money and been bought by Faecesbook".

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

    3. Cuddles

      Re: "Official Government Twitter Accounts"? WTF?

      "Am I the only one who sees anything wrong with this concept?"

      Probably not, but it's not actually as silly as it sounds. The problem with Twitter is that they want to be like Facebook; for all the hate the latter gets, being able to share pictures with friends, organise events and groups, and so on, are things that people actually want to do and Facebook is simply one of the more recent ways they are able to do so. But a medium that consists of shouting short sentences to anyone who happens to be listening is fundamentally not useful to the vast majority of people; that's just not how most people actually interact.

      What Twitter actually does do is one-to-many communication. Which is exactly the sort of thing an official government account would be useful for. Twitter can never work as a general social network in which everyone and their dog blindly shout into the void. How it could work is having relatively few accounts with useful things to say being followed by many more silent accounts who would benefit by listening - traffic alerts, the weather, football scores, stock values, earthquake alerts, and so on. There are lots of situations where one person/organisation has information that lots of other people want to know, and something like Twitter should be the perfect platform to allow that kind of interaction. You wouldn't want it as the only source of information, but that will always be true regardless of the source or medium.

      So no, there's really nothing wrong with the principle of an official government Twitter account, the problem is simply that Twitter is hardly ever used in the manner which would make such accounts useful (I say hardly ever, because earthquake and tsunami alerts actually are done in some places and apparently work as intended). Indeed, Twitter's management seem to be desperately doing everything they can except make it an actually useful service - they want to be as big as Facebook or die trying, rather than simply making a useful, profitable service.

      1. Florida1920

        Re: "Official Government Twitter Accounts"? WTF?

        "What Twitter actually does do is one- to too-many communication."

        FTFY

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: "Official Government Twitter Accounts"? WTF?

          And for very small values of "communication".

  2. Mark 85

    I don't think you're alone in this, Jake. Then again, I would expect to see more government Twitter accounts as the game of "follow the leader" gains players.

  3. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    More insidious?

    I think that promoting another religion is considered quite insidious in Saudi Arabia

    Good job it wasn't a picture of prophet brand bacon sandwich

    1. jake Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: More insidious?

      Or Hebrew National brand hotdogs. Which, by the way, are the only national brand worth buying, for those of you who don't make your own.

      Beer, because ... well, you gotta with a dog!

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: More insidious?

        Beer, because ... well, you gotta with a dog!

        The current dog seems to prefer tea. I did offer him cider (not having any beer in the house) and he looked at me like I was trying to murder him.

        Unlike the previous staffie-cross - she loved wine, port, beer, cider[1].. The only thing she seemed to draw the line at was whisky.

        [1] To the extent that, if I went out of the room, I had to make sure that my glass was well up out of her way, otherwise I'd come back in the room to find the level had dropped considerably in the glass. We reckoned that she was probably a pub yard-dog in her previous life.. It also would account for her advanced scavenging skills.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Abandoned usernames?

    Twitter allows re-use of deleted usernames?? I wonder if that's true even for official "verified" accounts (hopefully an "official" government account gets verified...)

    1. iron Silver badge

      Re: Abandoned usernames?

      READ THE ARTICLE! All your questions are answered therein.

      1. caffeine addict

        Re: Abandoned usernames?

        Actually, the article mentions nothing on the matter.

        It states that twitter allows username reuse, but doesn't address DougS's question as to if this policy also applies to verified accounts. There's no hint (in the article at least) as to if @USEmbassyRiyadh was verified or not.

        Maybe, read the question?

        1. 's water music

          Re: Abandoned usernames?

          Actually, the article mentions nothing on the matter.

          It states that twitter allows username reuse, but doesn't address DougS's question as to if this policy also applies to verified accounts. There's no hint (in the article at least) as to if @USEmbassyRiyadh was verified or not.

          Maybe, read the question?

          Perhaps the article has been modified but it makes it clear that the previous official account was verified.

          Littman says... ..."I would suggest that the implications for our trust in official information from the US government, Twitter as a communications platform, and the Internet Archive as the historical record are significant," he explained, though he acknowledges that the ruse fails to reproduce the blue Twitter check mark for the formerly verified embassy account.

          Littman argued ...The government... should only use verified Twitter accounts.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Abandoned usernames?

            OK, so the problem here is Twitter should never allow re-use of a name for a verified account. Hopefully this is an oversight they will be correcting, and not a decision they made deliberately - because if so, I can't see the logic behind allowing re-use of those names. Unless you were an early adopter and your Twitter name is generic like "bob", there are only bad reasons someone would try to re-use the name of a verified account.

  5. wallaby

    It beggars belief...

    That any government \ company or organisation would expose themselves to the potential for so much abuse (not in the slagging off sense) online.

    The rush for these entities to have a presence on platforms like twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al is crazy. If you want \ need to have an online presence then it should be your web space on your servers, your chat rooms, your email address's - not farm it out to some third party just so you can keep up with the kids and keep your costs down.

    If your online presence is important to your organisation, then you should take 100% control of it, secure it, and make sure nobody else can (to the best of your abilities) disguise themselves as you.

    And don't get me started on TV and radio programs that have competitions on Facebook etc.

    1. druck Silver badge

      Re: It beggars belief...

      It would also insure that it was 100% free of millennials, who never venture outside of Facebook/Twitter/Snapchat.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It beggars belief...

      My recent experience with a large corporate was the usual sitting on hold for ages trying to speak to a call centre on the phone. As an alternative I tried contacting via Facebook and Twitter. The shortest time to get any sort of response (usually not very helpful) was a number of days.

      I the end I gave up on trying to communicate with them via social media and stayed with the phone. The service was still s**t but at least they p***ed me off more quickly so it was a more efficient use of my time.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It beggars belief...

        Unless it's on Twitter and the company is SanDisk, in which case they'll be talking to you in minutes, even without the @. Seen it several times now where they jump in even when not addressed directly. Amazing although the technology is out there for any one else to use.

  6. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Social media 101

    Are you a government department? Don't delete your account ever.

  7. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

    New spin on an old issue

    I don't think this is too different from someone being able to buy an expired domain name and then set up a new website of their own.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: New spin on an old issue

      No but typically one is not allowed to buy fbi.gov

  8. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "I would suggest that the implications for our trust in official information from the US government, Twitter as a communications platform, and the Internet Archive as the historical record are significant,"

    There are similar implications for anyone who views a social media account as a form of "identity" (for want of a better word).

  9. ShadowDragon8685

    My takeaway from this article?

    It's reminded me that there's a cardboard cylinder (seriously, what do you call that container? A jar? Bottle? Neither seems appropriate, nor does box,) of Quaker oatmeal in by kitchen which I should have some of at some point today, because hot oatmeal warms the cockles of one's heart.

  10. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit

    He wants Twitter to stop allowing deleted account usernames to be recycled

    What a stupid idea. So John Smith registers JohnSmith and uses it until he gets a life or dies. Noone called John Smith from then until the heat death of the universe can again use the handle JohnSmith.

    It might well make sense for government and other institution perpetual accounts but for everyone? We're not immortal beings.

    to display user ID numbers alongside usernames.

    Much more sensible.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's Gone too Far

    I believe the Russians have been using one of the those accounts to post twitters under the guise of the president of the US. They must be stopped!

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