cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/19124166
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.
[…]
The Queensland government has urged the community to visit its disaster monitoring website for the most up-to-date information.
Why trust anything other than BOM or ABC for something like this?
Because the ABC and BOM have experts who are also enthusiasts.
As much fun it is to criticise the BOM when it is 34 degrees and rainy when they said it would be 33 and sunny, they are still the most accurate source of weather information.
The ABC (and independent public radio/TV) only interest is (should be) serving their communities. The ABC does have to satisfy their political and corporate overlords (look at what Arnold Frollows did to JJJ) but is a more reliable source of reality-based news and information.
When the ABC (and RRR/PBS/MBS/etc) stuff up and get to “corporate”, they loose supporters. Think of what happened when Sportsgirl tried to become a RRR sponsor…