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The slow death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the Baltimore bridge collapse (www.vox.com)

submitted 8 months ago by jeffw@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news. The Baltimore bridge collapse shows those days are long gone.

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[–] eldrichhydralisk@piefed.social 47 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The only reason I had a Twitter account was because there was an emergency event in my local area and Twitter was the one place I could get information about it right now. There were locals sharing what they knew, emergency services telling people what measures needed to be taken where, and journalists on the ground saying what they knew in real time. It was invaluable.

When I left Twitter, that ability to follow breaking news as it happens was the thing I was afraid I'd miss out on most. It's bittersweet to find out that I didn't need to worry about that after all.

[–] 2000mph@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

Exactly, I was the same. This is the News that Twitter was good for, the live events.

I'd always check Twitter for the initial on the scene explanation of what was happening from local people. In my case it was a massive warehouse fire that I could see the smoke in the distance. Obviously there was nothing about it on the traditional news sites, but loads of stuff from local people on Twitter immediately.

Then afterwards you'd just read the proper News outlets for the full official details after the fact.

[–] dlok@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Similarly, there was a sonic boom over our area in 2016, I kinda knew what it was having an interest in military aircraft but twitter was on fire about an explosion in our area and the military base itself responded with information on what was happening.

Turned out it was Euro fighter typhoons responding to a commercial flight that lost coms.

Last time I used twitter tbf