California residents say X prevented them from seeing an Amber Alert about a missing 14-year-old

People in Missouri reported experiencing a similar problem in July 2023, when the Missouri Highway Patrol sent Another Amber Alert push notification contained a link to X’s post. Locals similarly spoke of being unable to see the alert unless they were logged into the platform. “It was a big change” from the way alerts worked, says Missouri State Highway Patrol Lieutenant Eric Brown, who works in the Public Information and Education Division.

But the incident ultimately didn’t prompt the Missouri Highway Patrol to abandon the X as the go-to platform for Amber Alert notifications. According to Brown, when X verified the law enforcement agency’s account as an official government entity, the login issue disappeared and the public was once again able to “access our posts.”

Many of the California Highway Patrol’s official X accounts have the same verification badge as the Missouri Highway Patrol, including… The one Specifically dedicated to disseminating active statewide alerts. However, it does not appear that all of the California agency’s accounts have been verified, including… What does it look like? The official channel of the CHP Southern Section, which includes Los Angeles County.

When it was known as Twitter, it was X It is widely seen As an essential part of the global disaster and emergency communications infrastructure. Government officials and agencies around the world have relied on the service as a way to broadcast information about hurricanes, mass shootings and other crises. Before Musk took over the platform in 2022, anyone could view public tweets in their browser regardless of whether they had an account on the site or installed the Twitter mobile app. (In 2015, the company I mentioned More than 500 million people visit Twitter every month without logging in.)

In June 2023, there were reports that X had been infected Content locking has begun Behind the login screen began to appear online. At that time, Musk Named The move is a “temporary emergency measure” taken because X was “getting data stolen so often that it degraded the service.” It’s unclear exactly what Musk was referring to, but he spoke out the same month He expressed his concerns About AI companies like OpenAI allegedly scraping Twitter posts without prior permission.

The decision to shift the X to a more closed platform now appears to be stuck. According to tests conducted this week, X continues to restrict what people without accounts can see. WIRED looked at several of its staff reporters’ X accounts without logging in, for example, and was only able to view a sample of their popular posts rather than a comprehensive chronological summary. It appears that accounts managed by government agencies are not restricted in this way; All posts shared by your California Highway Patrol Alerts account can be viewed without logging in.

Aside from allowing anyone to view content shared on the platform, another way Twitter previously helped emergency contacts was by giving them free access to its API, which Musk later revoked. Which Permitted organizations Such as the US National Tsunami Warning Center to send automatic alerts about potentially deadly natural disasters. Researchers and first responders can also use the API to monitor activity across Twitter and “extract key insights, such as identifying hotspots or combating misinformation,” Hughes says. “The role of the platform has changed as policies and public use have evolved, so its effectiveness today may look very different.”

Despite these drawbacks, X remains an important platform for transmitting information during emergency situations. In October, several emergency government information officers PRWeek said They plan to continue posting updates on But the incident in California this week highlights how government agencies can run into problems when third-party services, once considered reliable, change their policies in unpredictable ways.