Twitter restrictions lead some first responders in northeastern Ontario to reconsider how they use it

The Greater Sudbury Police Service says it will monitor how recent changes to Twitter will affect how it shares public safety information with media and the public.

The social network has imposed new restrictions which require users to log in with an account to view tweets.

On Saturday, Twitter owner Elon Musk said he would also limit users with unverified accounts to reading 600 posts per day, while those with verified accounts would be able to read up to 6,000 posts a day.

Musk said in a tweet this is to address "extreme levels of data scraping and system manipulation" especially from artificial intelligence systems.

After backlash, the company later increased the limit to 2,400 tweets per day.

Kaitlyn Dunn, Greater Sudbury Police's corporate communications supervisor, told CBC News they mainly use Twitter to share information with media, who can then share it with their audiences.

"So with these changes, we really have to recognize how that may impact our ability to feed information to the media outlets," Dunn said.

"And we will have to explore alternative avenues, whether we go back to traditional media releases for every single update or if we move to one of the other social media platforms, we'll have to work with you guys [media] in order to determine what's the best fit."

Timmins Police Service spokesperson Marc Depatie said because the changes are so new they have to wait and see what they will mean, and whether or not they will move away from Twitter or change how they use it.

Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry told CBC News in an email they are reviewing Twitter's terms and conditions, but are not currently planning any changes.

The ministry uses Twitter — along with its own website, news releases and other social media — to share updates about wildfires across the province.

Risking public safety

Carmi Levy, a technology journalist and analyst based in London, Ont., said the changes at Twitter, limiting who can view tweets, could put lives at risk.

"These new restrictions that are being placed on it significantly hamper that ability and quite frankly risk compromising public safety as these organizations pull back on the services that we've come to rely on so much in recent years," Levy said.

For years, public safety organizations have used Twitter as an effective way to share information with the public in real time, Levy said.

Now, he says organizations will need to rethink how they use the platform.