🧵 This weekend, during a crisis, #Atlanta's leaders were, after a bit of a delay, blasting information onto every social media platform they could find, yet found themselves unable to adequately inform the public. Why?
As background, starting on Friday evening, #Atlanta saw cascading failures of its water service yesterday due to broking water main transmission lines. Service is still being restored.
The "NotifyATL" text message alert system was not utilized. Screenshots of press releases with tiny text were posted on Instagram. Critical health and safety info were posted into the void on X/Twitter. Blurry screenshots (instead of KML/SHP/ArcView Online/GeoJSON) of boil water advisories were posted.
And on the other platforms, if the algorithm thought the info was "interesting, " you could view in-between the usual talking animals, videos of car wrecks, and bizarre adverts.
Without #Twitter and #X, governments, electeds, and the like have found themselves unable to well, publish critical micro-blog statements to the public.
The tools they used to do that, HootSuite, Metricool, etc, still publish to those platforms, but the platforms themselves aren't designed to prioritize or even care about public safety-related content.
This is, quite frankly, scary. Why should I have to scroll through piles of crap to figure out if I should (or should not) drink the tap water.
What I find brilliant and fascinating about #ActivityPub is its inherent capability to serve as a micro-blogging message protocol that has baked-in redundancy, distributed delivery, and resiliency.
I know that advocating for #ActivityPub to be articulated into a platform for distributing critical safety info is a bit like advocating for the #Linux Desktop 🥹, but seriously, anything can be better than what we have now.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent out a memo to its staff and freelancers this week, banning them from making any public comment regarding the War in Gaza:
"Our operating principles also say you may support human rights with limitations."
What do you mean by "human rights with limitations"?
#FaniWillis#wins#primary
Willis now proceeds to November’s general #election, where she will face Courtney Kramer, a Republican lawyer who interned in the #Trump White House.
#FaniWillis defeated challenger Christian Wise Smith as she seeks another 4yr term as the top prosecutor in the #Atlanta area, acc/to an AP projection.
Another leading figure in the #Georgia#criminal case against #Trump, #FultonCounty Superior Court Judge Scott #McAfee was also on the ballot Tues, seeking his first full term since being appointed to the bench last year. That race has not yet been called.
BREAKING: Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican, endorses Biden in an AJC Op-Ed.
“The GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden."
Ryan Millsap’s apology for his messages, which were revealed by a ProPublica and Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation, comes as influential #government and #entertainment officials said they were disappointed by his derogatory rhetoric.
The bike shop I work at, #REI, just got back to me to tell me that they are going ahead with their policy of installing cameras in the shop to monitor employees. They say these are not used to track productivity, but the CEO is a union busting ex-Amazon executive and he has given himself that power, so that's enough for me. My last day will be mid-May and I am now properly desperate to find a new job before I loose my house. Leads in the bike or software industry welcome in or around #Atlanta.
On the bike side of things I have around 5 years of experience as a mechanic, shop coordinator, and trainer. Everything from basic tune ups to fork and shock work to service advising and shop operations.
On the tech side I have ~13 years experience in back end web systems, API design, and realtime communications. Mostly in Go and Rust.
🌙 Artist: #CourtneyEHicks in City: #Atlanta Cabbagetown, USA 🇺🇸 2019 - Title: "I tried to drown my demons... but they learned how to swim" ("Ich habe versucht, meine Dämonen zu ertränken, aber sie haben schwimmen gelernt") - (📷 by Forward Warrior Festival) - #Art#Streetart#Mural#UrbanArt#Artist
"Emory Stop Cop City dropped banners holding the university and administration accountable for their involvement in the cop city project.
We demand that Greg Fenves, president of Emory, step down from the Atlanta committee for progress and that Emory publicly boycott Brasfield and Gorrie, the main contractor for the cop city project."