Czech govt. staying on Twitter for now, despite German concerns

The Czech government is evaluating its activities on individual social networks as security is crucial. Its announcement came in response to the German government considering switching to other communication channels due to changes Twitter has made to its network in recent months. The Czech institutions addressed by ČTK are not planning to leave Twitter at the moment.

At a regular press conference, a German government spokeswoman said the cabinet has been monitoring changes taking place on Twitter since last year and as a result is "trying or looking for other channels." Twitter owner Elon Musk announced on Sunday new limits on the maximum number of posts users could read per day, according to the BBC.

Czech cabinet spokesman Václav Smolka told ČTK that the Government Office was evaluating the activity on individual social networks and adapting it to current requirements and trends.

"Security aspects in particular are key for us," he recalled of the recent cancellation of the TikTok account, which the National Office for Cyber and Information Security (NÚKIB) warned against. Smolka added that the government and Prime Minister Petr Fiala also use other platforms.

Changes are not currently being considered by the Presidential Office or the Chamber of Deputies and the ministries of Defense, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Justice, Finance, or Health, the institutions told ČTK.

Spokespersons admit that they are monitoring the situation around Twitter, but at the same time, they remind people that their institutions draw attention to their activities through other channels besides Twitter. Neither the ruling Civic Democrats (ODS) and the Mayors and Independents (STAN) nor the opposition ANO party are considering leaving Twitter.

"Currently, there is no similar broad platform that brings together both experts in the field and journalists or news reporters. The moment such a platform works well, we can imagine that it will not be a problem to leave Twitter. But for now we are not planning to do so," said Petr Býma from the Pirates' media department.

Musk said on Saturday that verified users can view 6,000 posts a day, non-verified users 600, and users with a newly created non-verified account 300 a day. The reason, he said, is the need to prevent extreme data extraction from the network as well as manipulation of the system.

Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October last year and the business has undergone extensive changes since. In a bid to boost revenue, Twitter has introduced paid user authentication as part of its Twitter Blue service and allowed those with a paid account to write significantly longer posts. Twitter has also reduced its staff by more than 80 percent.