NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has stopped using Twitter to post service updates “as the reliability of the platform can no longer be guaranteed,” an MTA official said late last week.
The MTA Twitter account will remain active for other forms of messaging, and customers will be able to tweet to MTA accounts with questions and for assistance. But Shanifah Rieara, the agency’s acting chief customer officer, said in a statement that the MTA does not pay tech platforms to publish service information. The New York Times reports that under new Twitter policies, MTA costs to access the platform were about $50,000 per month, and that MTA access to Twitter had been involuntarily interrupted twice in April.
The MTA said service information remains available at its website, through its MYmta and TrainTime apps, and through text messages and email alerts, as well as on display screens in stations, on trains, and in buses.
Or maybe they just didn’t like that Twitter is now owned by Elon Musk?
When the webpage, social media account or e-mail service is “free”, then the user is the product.
Service levels my butt. They didn’t want to spend $50k a month for something that had been free for years. Even Google is starting to charge for services that have been “free”.
Look for more biz to slide off the leeching and find other means to serve their customers.