Local Agencies Ready if Twitter Doesn’t Survive

MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIF. (KION-TV)- As the future of Twitter is in the air, local agencies don’t feel phased.

If that's the case, where else are agencies like in Monterey County spreading their news? Public Information Officer for the Health Department Karen Smith gave some examples.

“The Health Department just on itself has Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,” Smith said. “We have a Tik Tok channel. There’s ways to get the information out there.”

Social media is something that agencies across the Central Coast utilize to send out the latest information. Twitter by itself was something people living in the counties relied on a lot.

When asked how they would adjust, Cal-Fire Battalion Chief in Sacramento Southern Region Jon Heggie said they already have website feeds that are like Twitter.

“With the thought that there may be a limited use of Twitter or Twitter potentially going away, we still have our main platform in which we put fire information out whenever there’s a fire throughout the state of California,” Heggie said.

Supervisors within Monterey County, like District 4 Supervisor Wendy Root Askew, understand how important it is to use a platform like Twitter. 

However she knows this won’t be the only popular site they’ll need to use saying, “It is incumbent upon us as elected officials, it’s incumbent upon us as local government to continue innovating, continue listening to our community, and continue putting information back out exactly how people are gonna consume it.”

People living in the county can sign up for Alert Monterey. and of course… you can trust us at KION to always bring you important information, on air and across every platform that is available. 

We also reached out to Santa Cruz County to get their take on how they would adjust. We’re still waiting to hear back from them.