Deleting Tweets Following Disruption

[ryan125hst]

There has been quite a bit of disruption over the last week on the ECML for a variety of reasons.

When looking on LNER's Twitter feed (or rather X as we are supposed to call it now...) I noticed that there is no reference to disruption beyond yesterday. Even the maps showing the location of the disruption that are found in the Media tab seem to have gone.

It seems that LNER now delete tweets following incidents, presumably to prevent confusion?

I don't remember them doing this previously, but perhaps I just didn't notice. Is it a new thing or does it go back to VTEC or East Coast days?

 

[sh24]

I think they (and other TOCs) have always done this to avoid confusion.

 

[Horizon22]

If a TOC is mainly user their Twitter/X feed as "Live Disruption Updates", then yes it would seem sensible to do this. Other disruption messaging doesn't remain for days on end (or theoretically forver) via other platforms.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I think they (and other TOCs) have always done this to avoid confusion.

This makes some sense, given that very frequently X and Facebook algorithms otherwise serve up delay related messages from another day.

 

[Sheddyone]

Makes sense. On YouTube it's very frustrating that it keeps suggesting Met Office weather forecasts from weeks ago after I've watched today's forecast.

 

[zwk500]

This makes some sense, given that very frequently X and Facebook algorithms otherwise serve up delay related messages from another day.

Indeed, getting news reports of major disruption from 3 or so days ago on my facebook feed is a very regular occurrence

 

[800001]

I think they delete disruption tweets, but will never delete a customers tweet/reply.

 

[ryan125hst]

This makes some sense, given that very frequently X and Facebook algorithms otherwise serve up delay related messages from another day.

It definitely makes sense and social media definitely sometimes serves up content from days or even weeks ago, so I can see how a tweet about services being cancelled are best deleted to avoid confusion.

I think they delete disruption tweets, but will never delete a customers tweet/reply.

That seems to be the case, everything is still there in the Replies tab.

 

[AlterEgo]

I think they delete disruption tweets, but will never delete a customers tweet/reply.

Because they can't. You can't delete someone else's tweet.

 

[800001]

Because they can't. You can't delete someone else's tweet.

Ok

 

[TheManBehind]

So I used to work on the social desk at one operator - the change came about when social media platforms changed their display algorithms to serve up more engagement-focused material as opposed to timeline-based curation. This meant that a major disruption incident would end up appearing on people's feeds for days and causing confusion, as it was considered high-engagement due to the large number of replies it would get from customers seeking information.

 

[ryan125hst]

So I used to work on the social desk at one operator - the change came about when social media platforms changed their display algorithms to serve up more engagement-focused material as opposed to timeline-based curation. This meant that a major disruption incident would end up appearing on people's feeds for days and causing confusion, as it was considered high-engagement due to the large number of replies it would get from customers seeking information.

That's understandable as social media does seem to do that a lot now. At one point the most recent post was at the top and you saw older posts as you scrolled. Now posts from days ago appear near the top if it's popular and you haven't seen it.

 

[Sakuradori]

I wish news outlets would do something similar. My phone has figured out that I like trains, and gives me news articles about the railways. Unfortunately, a lot of news articles about the railways have headlines like "Major disruption on Thameslink today", on an article published 4 days ago.

 

[styles]

I wish news outlets would do something similar. My phone has figured out that I like trains, and gives me news articles about the railways. Unfortunately, a lot of news articles about the railways have headlines like "Major disruption on Thameslink today", on an article published 4 days ago.

On the contrary, I feel news sources should provide permanent records.

It's really irritating to link to say a BBC news article, a website caches the headline and first paragraph and photo, only for BBC to change the headline or opening paragraph or photo later. Or indeed they completely rewrite articles.

The problem is with the news aggregation services which fail to filter out articles which are too old to be relevant.

 

[TheTallOne]

I wish news outlets would do something similar. My phone has figured out that I like trains, and gives me news articles about the railways. Unfortunately, a lot of news articles about the railways have headlines like "Major disruption on Thameslink today", on an article published 4 days ago.

And the article is on the Wales Online site.

Then two days later the same article pops up but in the Bristol variant of the same Retch syndication.

 

[Frontera2]

I think they (and other TOCs) have always done this to avoid confusion.

Not all operators do this - for us, we prefer for there to be a permanent record for a number of reasons. 1) If customers need to ascertain if there was disruption on a specific date, they have a useful resource to search. 2) It helps the operator for audit or incident review purposes. 3) It's important for transparency.

 

[BlueLeanie]

The problem is with the news aggregation services which fail to filter out articles which are too old to be relevant.

Ah yes the "Storm Hits Orlando" I got as a news update from Retch this week when it happened last year.

 

[ryan125hst]

Not all operators do this - for us, we prefer for there to be a permanent record for a number of reasons. 1) If customers need to ascertain if there was disruption on a specific date, they have a useful resource to search. 2) It helps the operator for audit or incident review purposes. 3) It's important for transparency.

Yeah that's the downside of deleting the tweets, no record of what happened and when. It's a shame the TOC's can't set up the tweets in such a way that they won't appear on algorithms the following day but are still on the feed. But that would need X to provide this functionality...