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The RSS Feed is a news aggregator that allows people to get the latest press releases directly from the government agencies as they happen. At FightBackinSac.com we used them as a source for the latest releases from many federal and state agencies, as well as a few municipalities. Unfortunately they are being phased out in favor of big business social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, even LinkedIn. Everyone may favor the ease of use and the ability to forward such links, however there is a downside to this. I don't believe having big business social media acting as the middleman for government agencies news to the public is a safe practice given their proven bias and censorship. Furthermore, the public should not have to depend on signing an agreement to terms of service to enable them to receive government information. As it stands right now, the federal government, including the White House websites exclusively use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube as the method of electronic press releases in a web friendly format, meaning you can embed them onto your websites automatically. If you cannot or refuse to sign onto those social media sites, your only recourse is to manually visit the government sites each day for the releases, or get them in the email. In both cases you must manually enter the links into your websites. The exclusivity of these social media sites grants only four or five big corporate moguls the opportunity to usher more users in for no cost to them, and gives them an unchecked authority to limit the releases they don't want. I have no knowledge that they have all organized to limit certain releases, but why would we allow them to even have that option, given their propensity to shamelessly take sides in debates on social political subjects. A few years back, I tried attending a press meeting that our local sheriff organized. I was refused at the door as being an unauthorized media representative. The press release gave the local mainstream media agents the freshest news on a hot news item, and often gives them the opportunity to ask questions or for clarifications. The mainstream media is then free to publish what they want from that, leaving the public to get the news from their government agency from a handful of chosen middlemen. We all, left and right, criticize the media for their blatant biases, omissions, and even propagandizing when they publish. This is why we do not want the big social media companies acting as the exclusive middleman for government news releases also. The RSS feed was the last remaining bastion of free distribution of government press releases that was web-user friendly. I don't know if there is, or was any effort to push back at the government level to get these reinstated or not, but I'd sure like to here from anyone that knows, and if not, we should start one
Davi Rodrigues
Fight Back in Sac
The RSS Feed is a news aggregator that allows people to get the latest press releases directly from the government agencies as they happen. At FightBackinSac.com we used them as a source for the latest releases from many federal and state agencies, as well as a few municipalities. Unfortunately they are being phased out in favor of big business social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, even LinkedIn. Everyone may favor the ease of use and the ability to forward such links, however there is a downside to this. I don't believe having big business social media acting as the middleman for government agencies news to the public is a safe practice given their proven bias and censorship. Furthermore, the public should not have to depend on signing an agreement to terms of service to enable them to receive government information. As it stands right now, the federal government, including the White House websites exclusively use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube as the method of electronic press releases in a web friendly format, meaning you can embed them onto your websites automatically. If you cannot or refuse to sign onto those social media sites, your only recourse is to manually visit the government sites each day for the releases, or get them in the email. In both cases you must manually enter the links into your websites. The exclusivity of these social media sites grants only four or five big corporate moguls the opportunity to usher more users in for no cost to them, and gives them an unchecked authority to limit the releases they don't want. I have no knowledge that they have all organized to limit certain releases, but why would we allow them to even have that option, given their propensity to shamelessly take sides in debates on social political subjects. A few years back, I tried attending a press meeting that our local sheriff organized. I was refused at the door as being an unauthorized media representative. The press release gave the local mainstream media agents the freshest news on a hot news item, and often gives them the opportunity to ask questions or for clarifications. The mainstream media is then free to publish what they want from that, leaving the public to get the news from their government agency from a handful of chosen middlemen. We all, left and right, criticize the media for their blatant biases, omissions, and even propagandizing when they publish. This is why we do not want the big social media companies acting as the exclusive middleman for government news releases also. The RSS feed was the last remaining bastion of free distribution of government press releases that was web-user friendly. I don't know if there is, or was any effort to push back at the government level to get these reinstated or not, but I'd sure like to here from anyone that knows, and if not, we should start one
Davi Rodrigues
Fight Back in Sac