The NWT government and city of Yellowknife are describing in tweets, Instagram messages etc. how to search key evacuation information on CPAC and CBC. The broadcast carriers have a duty to carry emergency information, but Meta and X are blocking links.
While internet access is reportedly limited in Yellowknife, residents are finding this a barrier to getting current and accurate information. Even links to CBC radio are blocked.
Cell towers work in some but not all the smaller hamlets.
This doesn’t seem to the point however. Meta and X not carrying links isn’t a barrier for those who have no Internet access whatsoever. Whether north of 60 or not, a very significant portion of the population has become reliant on Meta and X to feed them news to the point that they don’t know where to get reliable evacuation guidance in an emergency.
As an aside, resilient emergency communications to the public a reason that the CBC will be maintaining AM radio stations that broadcast curve of the Earth. The public needs to know where to find that and have AM radios to access it however.
Thing is, if there is an emergency, you are not going to force the user to follow a link. You are going to put the details they need to know right there. Something Meta and X are quite happy to allow.
There is good reason the payload the emergency alert system those cell towers carry isn’t a link to a CBC article. That would be silly and would be equally silly if done on Facebook/Instagram/X/whatever.
The framing of this as a linking issue is hilarious and nonsensical.
Nonsense. If you put the details that everyone needs to know in one message, and then update it as things change you’ll just run into issues where various apps will consider it old news and drop it off.
It also relies on people to constantly check this one post for updates rather than having the updates pushed to them.
Linking allows them to have a resource that is constantly being updated while also being able to push it, and get it into people’s feeds.
Normally if things change you post a new message. That is how the cell network alert system functions. I repeat, they do not send you a link to a web page with the information you need to know, and there is no doubt good reason for that.
If you think the cell network alert system is fundamentally flawed, that is our top priority as it is how the vast majority of people using apps are going to receive the alerts. The call to improve alerts on Meta/X is way down the list to catch a smaller group of people who missed the cell network alerts. It is critical to reach the widest audience first.
But, again, the right way to get emergency information in front of people is to get it in front of them immediately, not make them navigate through layers upon layers to find the information. Once you get to fixing Meta/X, you are going to have them improve displaying the alerts in their own interface where the people already are. Forcing people to navigate to see an emergency alert will never be relevant. That is just plain bad UX.