Slashdot Mirror
Running a Town Over Twitter
dkatana writes: You may call Jun an ancient town — it was founded by Romans 2,200 years ago. But Jun's mayor is known worldwide for using the latest technology to run the city. Back in 1999, when he was deputy mayor, the town declared internet a basic universal right for its citizens. And now political parties run "virtual" campaigns without printing posters. But the most impressive accomplishment of Jun's mayor is running the entire town administration and public services using Twitter. He has more followers (350 k) than the mayor of NY. A third of the 3,800 residents have Twitter accounts, and they use the platform to interact with the city administration at all levels.
Interaction with any particular government should not require consuming the services of one particular company. Outsourcing should be a last resort for any function of government, only when it is impossible to employ people directly to provide relevant functions, and only temporarily. But outsourcing long-term to one particular company is the worst.
Having seen their "Twitter monument" in the town centre - a fucking monument to a private company - this passes almost for a parody of privatisation of government.
Since when is a government office using Twitter "merging" with it? When government computers run Microsoft Windows, are they also "merging" with Microsoft? When they use a Selectric typewriter, are they "merging" with IBM?
Governments and private industry always have and always will work together. The government doesn't actually *produce* anything, and as such, relies on the private industry for many products and services, just like other businesses do. That's how things work. I'm a little mystified by the knee-jerk auto-outrage.
Mayor José Antonio Rodríguez Salas (@JoseantonioJun) has encouraged all Jun residents to get a Twitter account to communicate easily with the town government. That way they can report issues about public services and infrastructure, send suggestions, participate in the town decisions and “talk” to the mayor and council members directly.
Hmm, I'd tend to call this the exact opposite of fascism.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.