Everything related to communication technologies constitutes realities that advance at geometric speed, while the pulse to regulate them beats slower. Take, for example, social networks, born as complex interactive tools capable of directing communication towards where the personal impulse feels satisfied in dopamine terms, or towards where the majority decides to move, conditioned by the psychology of the masses (Le Bon).
Here in the yard, social networks lack regulation, and attempts are oriented as tools that can be used to commit already classified crimes. In this regard, the debate advances between the legislative ebb and flow, spurred, conditioned or slowed by public opinion… more public than ever in times of networks.
Something that deserves to be addressed is the regulation of the use of the State’s own social media accounts; whose institutions, as public law entities, hold ownership of these because they constitute an extension of their personality.
In practice, is it like that? For example, there are State institutions that have two accounts on some social networks. This allows us to speculate that the registration, authorization, administration and management processes were carried out by different individuals, at different times. For whatever reasons, the personal nature of the account creation process with the provider allows that, in the absence of regulation, agreements or protocols, the possibility of exclusion of ownership and/or (temporary?) management of the account by the holding institution remains open.
In terms of information management, many institutional accounts are showcases of the life of the official on duty; mirrors where your personal vanity is reflected, and little else.
It is urgent that the State regulate the use of its social networks; that organizes and centralizes the account opening process; custody of keys; that rules of use be established: what information to publish, what photograph to upload, times and formats of publications, etc.
The recent rains are an example. There is no uniformity or homogeneity in the publications of the organizations linked to the management of the official response. Different information in publications from ministries, directorates and organizations shows that beyond what the “community manager” publishes, there are no uniform integrated protocols, standardized criteria, much less a flowchart that establishes the information roadmap from the moment the decision is made until it is published on the institution’s networks.
Public network accounts are property of the State, projections of its solemnity. As such, they must respond to national interests quickly, objectively and rigorously, from the logic of expanding information and making it accessible to the citizen; not from a residual informative function, but immediate; far from it from the logic of being a log that collects the personal milestones of the official on duty. This needs to be organized, and it needs to be done now.
