WASHINGTON — During severe weather, real-time information can save your life. But the National Weather Service says you might not get that info because of a new Twitter policy.
THE QUESTION
Will the National Weather Service lose the ability to send some tweets containing information about severe weather?
THE SOURCES
Rebekah Tromble, Director of the Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University
THE ANSWER
WHAT WE FOUND
Before last weekend’s storm, the National Weather Service’s Baltimore-Washington office sent this tweet saying that because of a new Twitter policy, automated tweets that show advisories, watches, and warnings might not load.
And several other NWS offices have posted similar messages in the last few weeks.
Twitter announced in March that it would limit access to its API, which allowed developers to do things such as make bot accounts and schedule automated posts. It planned to limit them to roughly 50 automated posts a day unless they pay for premium access, and the change will be complete by this Saturday.
The Baltimore-Washington office sent out 18 of those tweets about the storm on Saturday. But the national NWS Severe Thunderstorm account sent 182 on Saturday and 80 more on Sunday.
In a written statement, the National Weather Service said, “Without this automated process, it would take minutes for forecasters to manually prepare warning information into a tweet. For every warning issued, seconds could make the difference between life and death.”
Rebekah Tromble leads the Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University. The institute signed onto a letter calling on Twitter to keep its API accessible for academics, journalists, and users at large to promote research, as well as accountability and transparency within Twitter. She agreed that the new policy may harm the National Weather Service.
"Twitter's previous policies allowed accounts like the National Weather Service to automate alert notifications posted on the platform," she said via email. "That meant Twitter users could easily and nearly instantaneously receive important breaking information and alerts. Twitter's new policies place dramatic restrictions on the number of posts that can be shared automatically. If the NWS or other emergency services need to post a large number of alerts in a short period of time, they may simply hit the Twitter limit, and users won't receive any more vital breaking information.
"The new policies are also causing incredible confusion about whether images, videos, and other media files can be posted automatically. While Twitter claims that the new plan will permit media uploads, they have also said that they are terminating access to the only system that actually permits these uploads. And because the Twitter team rarely responds to inquiries, no one knows for sure what is going to happen."
We can verify that the National Weather Service may lose the ability to send some automated tweets, unless it pays for that service.
This only affects posts on Twitter. The National Weather Service recommends using a weather radio or going to its website instead of relying on tweets during an emergency. You can also rely on WUSA9 Weather Watch and our team of meteorologists.