Social media giant Meta blocked or hid Facebook search results for “Cyclone Alfred” ahead of the tropical storm bearing down on Australia’s east coast.
The platform is a key communication channel for emergency coverage in Australia and is used to help broadcast evacuation orders and other updates to residents during a crisis.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred is expected to make landfall between the Gold Coast and southern parts of Wide Bay region as early as Thursday evening as a category two cyclone.
It is forecast to bring destructive winds and the risk of life-threatening flooding.
But general searches about cyclones or “TC Alfred” did produce information and articles in the search results, indicating some kind of throttling about the term Cyclone Alfred specifically.
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The Queensland government has urged the community to visit its disaster monitoring website for the most up-to-date information.
No commercial platform should be the core of an emergency information system. One might mirror information there, but the core should always be. In public hands.
it is: all emergency information throughout australia is primarily posted on government websites, but if people look for information elsewhere then it’s important to get them timely information across all channels wherever they are