With unprecedented destruction occurring in Japan on March 11, 2010, one surprising element stood out to the science community as to the safety of the survivors: twitter. That’s right, the social networking/ blogging site allowed agencies to receive updates from the survivors themselves. The article points out that“Twitter has played in quickly disseminating information about world events, such as Barack Obama's presidential campaign, terrorism in Mumbai and other places, Iran street protests and events that have since unfurled in the Middle East, the earthquake in Chile, flooding, forest fires, shooting incidents, and even the crash-landing of a passenger aircraft on the Hudson River in New York. As such, some researchers have suggested that Twitter is more than a communication tool and can function as real-time earthquake detection, election results forecasting, enterprise microblogging, as well as in word-of-mouth marketing, foreign language learning, celebrity watching and media profiling.”
As good as this idea seems, there were a few troublesome areas with the twitter updates. Users using the symbol “#” (known as a hashtag) would allow users of the site to filter out unwanted updates. However, due to hashtag misuse, it became difficult for rescuers to receive certain messages sent by people directly in the earthquake and tsunami stricken areas. It is being called upon Twitter to fix this problem, and potentially set up emergency notification networks for news agency and local governments to directly speak to the people involved in a disaster. It is reported that twitter was the only working form of media after the events of March, 11.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110415154734.htm
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