JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Recent changes to Twitter are wreaking havoc on the Missouri State Highway Patrol when issue an AMBER Alert.
The Highway Patrol is now looking for answers after sending out an AMBER Alert last week and people were not able to open the link because of new restrictions on Twitter. Missouri State Highway Patrol (MSHP) Public Information Director Captain John Hotz said these changes to the social media site came without any advance notice.
“That was all news to us,” Hotz said. “There wasn’t anything sent to us in advance, so we didn’t really know about it until we started seeing some comments.”
Earlier this month, MSHP sent out more than a handful of AMBER Alerts within a week.
“Last year, we had 10 over the whole year, and we had six basically in a week’s time this year,” Hotz said. “Very unusual.”
The recent changes to Twitter disrupted the AMBER Alert process for state police. One of the alerts came from an AMBER Alert in Breckenridge Hills, in the St. Louis area, last Wednesday. The alert that was sent via the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system included a hyperlink with details about the missing child, but many people couldn’t open it with the changes to Twitter.
“People used to be able to get to the MO Alerts information on our Twitter page without having an account, where suddenly having to sign in or create an account before getting to the information,” Hotz said.
MSHP is in charge of sending out the alert on behalf of the local agencies.
The Highway Patrol started integrating its AMBER Alert system with Twitter in 2020 by including Twitter hyperlinks to the alerts sent to phones and Facebook.
“The problem was that as we were using our patrol webpage, sending everyone directly to that page, as you know when you’ve got hundreds of thousands of people going to something all at once, it was creating issues for our served,” Hotz said.
Twitter’s capacity to handle huge amounts of traffic is why Missouri and other states use it for AMBER Alerts. This also means that the Show Me State isn’t the only one asking Elon Musk and his online social media site about the changes.
“We basically have reached out to see if this is a temporary thing, or exactly what the protocol is for moving forward,” Hotz said. “I’ve also reached out to the California Highway Patrol because there are eight or ten other states that do things exactly like we do.”
Hotz said MSHP has still not heard back from Twitter but for now, the patrol will continue to use the social media platform. Missourians can also get the information on MSHP’s website and Facebook page.
“I know there is some concern about this and we’re working through it, but in this case we had six AMBER Alerts in roughly a week’s time and those cases, give of them were directly related to the information that we put out in the alert, so the system is still working very well, there’s just a little bit of an issue getting people to Twitter and the additional information,” Hotz said.
MSHP also recently changed its protocol for sending out an alert through the WEA system. You will now only receive the AMBER Alert if you’re in the area where the child was abducted instead of the entire state being notified. Hotz said it’s important to make sure you have this alert system turned on.
“Some folks have disabled the alerts because they don’t want to get alerted anytime there’s an alert somewhere in the state,” Hotz said. “We’re asking you to turn them back on. The WEA has the vehicle description as well as the license number, if we have it, and ultimately that’s what is going to help people locate the missing children and the suspect.”
For more information on MO Alerts or to subscribe, visit the department’s website, https://www.moalerts.mo.gov. You can also find alerts on MSHP’s Facebook and Twitter pages.