NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it is “assessing its options” regarding Twitter use after the social media site announced it would reverse a policy charging public agencies for automated warning such as transit status updates.
The MTA said last week that it had stopped using Twitter for status updates because “the reliability of the platform can no longer be guaranteed,” but the New York Times reported the new policies would cost agency about $50,000 per month [see “New York MTA quits using Twitter …,” Trains News Wire, May 1, 2023].
A Twitter post Wednesday said the microblogging site that verified government or publicly owned services who tweet weather alerts, transport updates and emergency notifications will be able to use the application programming interface, or API, for free.
This led the MTA to post that it was “glad Twitter got the message” and it was considering its options.
The Washington Post reports that organizations such as the National Weather Service also welcomed the news. Under the prior policy, the Weather Service had expected to be limited to 50 free tweets and had warned that some weather alerts might not be posted.
But it also reports other organizations were not sure if they were covered by the exception. Twitter, which has laid off its media relations staff, did not respond to Post inquiries.
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