Twitter changes speed up police work – NRK Norway – Overview of news from different parts of the country

On Saturday night, Twitter owner Elon Musk announced that users of the free app can now only read 1,000 messages per day.

Newly created free accounts are limited to 500 messages per day.

On the other hand, verified accounts, which cost money, can read 60k messages.

The police work to obtain property

Police used Twitter to pass information to the public in 2011. In the absence of anything else, Twitter was chosen, police wrote in an email to NRK.

Twitter is a commercial player over which we have no control. We are now working on taking ownership and control of the platform that is used to obtain information from the police, wrote press officer Rohr Hansen at the Police Directorate.

– Hansen writes that recent development at Twitter means we are now working to accelerate this work even further.

The Operations Center will stop using Twitter when the police are confident they will have the information.

Moreover, they wrote that during the transition period they will post both on Twitter and on politiet.no.

And they confirm that so far no date has been set for the liquidation.

– If Twitter goes down, the police have their own platforms like politiet.no and are in close contact with the press to spread information, Hansen writes.

Evolution follows

It’s very rare that Twitter is used for preventive knowledge, says Hege Aas, a communications consultant for the Oslo Fire and Rescue Service.

Twitter is a channel we use to report events. A number of media outlets are following us here to capture the events. We conduct preventive communications targeting Oslo residents through Facebook, Instagram, the media and other channels we have.

Aas also says they haven’t detected at this time that Twitter messages are reaching fewer people.

– What steps are you taking now to deal with the new changes?

– We are following the development and will consider alternative channels if we deem it necessary.

Important social actors should view Twitter as an additional warning

IT expert Torgir Waterhouse points out that the changes are partly related to the fact that many people are reusing data elsewhere.

Moreover, he says, the new changes show that actors who criticize society, such as the police and fire service, cannot base themselves on Twitter.

– One thing is the last change, if you see all the changes that have been made, it is quite clear that all socially important players who use Twitter to report should view Twitter as an additional notification, says the expert.

When asked what Waterhouse thinks will be necessary for Elon Musk to turn around, he said it’s just a matter of experimenting with how to implement the new changes.

– If this works well for Twitter, they will probably continue to do so.

– and see how many changes have been made recently. It indicates that they are looking for solutions that work well, and if this seems to be working well, they are likely to continue.

– If it doesn’t work the way they want it to, they’ll probably adjust and adapt until they find something they feel works, says Waterhouse.

Active Twitter users

City council representative on the Millennium Development Goals, Eyvind Tredal, uses Twitter himself. He believes that the changes destroy the professionalism of the app.

– It seems like a very effective way to destroy the complete professionalism of the app, as most people scroll through 600 messages very quickly, says a city council representative.

Social debater Jan Arild Snoen also actively uses Twitter. He says that Twitter has a dominant position within this type of social media sector.

– Because everyone is there. This is something classic. Everyone is out there, and everyone is out there because it’s free for the user. And if this is no longer the case, then only the hard core can be prepared for this.