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As The Government And Emergency Agencies Shift To Twitter What Happens To Those Left Behind?

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Government agencies across the United States are increasingly turning to social media to keep citizens informed. Whether routine news, mass transit announcements or emergency broadcasts, government agencies, especially those relating to emergency services, are increasingly using Twitter in particular to keep the public updated. In turn, the public is increasingly turning to Twitter to communicate with first responders during emergencies, making it a critical lifeline during times when traditional 911 dispatch centers are overwhelmed or unavailable. Yet, social media platforms are private companies not available to everyone and can ban users for any reason at any time with no right to appeal. While anyone can view tweets even without having a user account, those without user accounts cannot interact with government agencies to request information or contact first responders during emergencies when traditional avenues like 911 are unavailable. Should social platforms be legally required to provide access to anyone to contact government agencies, first responders and elected officials?

Government agencies are increasingly turning to social media, especially Twitter, to communicate with the public. Across the country more and more police and fire fighting departments no longer post news releases on their websites, but rather use Twitter as their exclusive public notification system. Whether announcing an upcoming event or posting realtime emergency alerts and notifications to the public, Twitter has become the defacto emergency alert service of municipal governments.

Take a major storm blowing through a city neighborhood, causing widespread power outages, flash floods, downed trees, electrical fires and other hazards. Visiting the city government’s website or the websites of the police and fire departments are unlikely to yield any updated information in most cities. Instead, those agencies are likely pouring out a steady stream of realtime updates on their Twitter accounts, listing the intersections where there are accidents, the addresses to avoid due to downed trees and flash floods, safe transit paths, shelter locations and so on.

Twitter has truly become the realtime emergency alert platform of government.

Anyone can access these alerts even without being a Twitter user, but only those with active Twitter user accounts can actually respond to these emergency messages to request additional information or report emergencies in the event of 911 unavailability.

Yet, Twitter as a private company has the exclusive right to determine who it grants membership to. It can deny, suspend or revoke membership of any user for any reason at any time without appeal.

This was once the case with cellular phones as well, but their increasing use in emergency situations led to legislation forcing cellular companies to grant access to everyone for emergency use.

In the United States, federal law requires that all cellular phones must be able to make 911 calls, even if the phone’s owner has fallen behind on their payments and has had their cellular service disconnected by the phone company or if they are in a service area exclusively covered by a competing provider.

This ensures that no matter who you are, no matter why your mobile provider has disconnected your phone, you are still guaranteed the right to call for help in an emergency.

What makes this federal law so relevant to the internet era is that it requires private companies to provide access to their walled gardens to anyone for the purposes of contacting emergency agencies. While phone companies are normally free to decide who to provide services to or not, when it comes to 911 calls they have no choice but to grant access to everyone.

Such laws have not caught up to the internet era.

Twitter and Facebook are under no such obligations to provide emergency access to first responders. A user they have decided to suspend or permanently banned is banned from all contact with emergency services through their platforms, without exception.

If Twitter suspends a user and the next day a flash flood washes through their city and 911 service is overwhelmed or suffers a service failure and everyone else in the city is communicating their location and needs to first responders via Twitter, the suspended user is effectively cut off from being able to access governmental emergency services on the authority of a private company.

To put this another way, a private company now has the authority and power to deny an American citizen the right to contact emergency services through their platform during life-threatening emergencies to request the assistance that could mean the difference between life and death.

Take the case of Twitter suspending a user who is subsequently unable to contact emergency services during a disaster situation in which 911 is temporarily unavailable and all surrounding citizens use Twitter to request assistance. If the Twitter-suspended user ultimately dies because they were unable to use Twitter to request help, should Twitter be held legally liable for their death?

Almost all first responder Twitter accounts include an explicit disclaimer that their Twitter accounts are not monitored 24/7 and should never be used for emergency requests. Yet, the reality is that they increasingly are becoming the new 911.

During Hurricane Harvey, more than a dozen 911 call centers were knocked out of service and the resulting deluge of calls was so intense that many callers could not actually reach an operator. In effect, 911 became so overwhelmed it ceased to function.

Into this vacuum stepped social media, with citizens across the affected areas posting their pleas for help to social platforms. In fact, even the Houston Office of Emergency Management and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office turned to social media to communicate with residents.

Posting calls for help on social media has become ever more prevalent during disaster situations, with citizens able to coordinate among themselves to assist overwhelmed emergency services with rescues.

This means that being permitted to post to Twitter could mean the difference between life and death in an emergency.

What if Twitter and Facebook were forced to follow the same rules as cellular phone providers and guarantee that even suspended and banned accounts still retained their right to communicate with emergency service accounts?

Under such a model, any suspended or banned account would lose its ability to post except directly to accounts marked as being official government first responder accounts, providing users the same rights on Twitter as they have with their cellphones.

Similarly, one could imagine the same rights extended to communications with elected officials, ensuring suspended and banned users can still message the elected officials that represent them.

I asked Twitter how it would respond to the concern that denying suspended and banned users the right to communicate with emergency services during life-threatening emergencies places those individuals at a disadvantage.

The company’s response?

To point me to its “fake news” and “healthy conversation” policies and to reiterate its denial that it performs “shadow banning.”

When asked how these topics related to citizens communicating with first responders during emergencies, the company said it had nothing to add.

It is truly remarkable that Twitter’s response to the question of how its policies affect the life-and-death issue of citizens communicating with emergency responders during life-threatening disasters was to point me to their “fake news” and “health conversation” policies and to reiterate that it doesn’t perform “shadow banning,” as if the reason that a user is banned somehow justifies denying them the ability to request life-saving assistance during emergencies.

Putting this all together, as social media increasingly becomes the primary communications platform of government agencies and especially emergency responders, private companies now have the legal right to deny American citizens the right to use their services in life-threatening emergencies to communicate with government emergency services.

Do we need new legislation to bring social media platforms in line with cellular providers in legally requiring Twitter to grant suspended and banned user accounts the right to communicate with first responders and potentially their elected officials?

The status quo of allowing a private company to serve as emergency gatekeeper in controlling who can request life-saving help and who cannot goes against all of the rights and societal norms of our country.

In the end, it shouldn’t be up to a private for-profit company to decide who has the right to call for help as 911 increasingly moves online.