Twitter Inundated: Social Media Plays Critical Role In Mumbai
November 27, 2008 by Erika
Twitter, and Social Media have today, come of age. Even before the terrorist attacks on Mubai, India broke mainstream media, social media sites like Twitter were inundated with a huge volume of messages providing eyewitness accounts, updates, live reporting of lists of the dead and injured from hospitals in Mumbai and tweets pleaing for blood doners to come to the hospitals as casualities mounted. With over 6 million users, an estimated 80 tweets providing eyewitness accounts were being sent every 5 seconds from Mubai.
Neha Viswanathan, a former regional editor for Southeast Asia and a volunteer at Global Voices, told CNN.com, “Even before I actually heard of it on the news I saw stuff about this on Twitter.
Several people who were trapped inside the hotel were tweeting their locations asking for help, and another was tweeting that terrorists were asking for the hotel rooms of American citizens and holding them hostage on the floor.
CNN.com summed it up; “It was the day social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news-gathering force to be reckoned with.”
Twitter users mobilized immediately tweeting phone numbers for helplines for family members with loved ones caught up in the attacks, and tweeters were key in quickly creating lists of the dead and injured beteween hospitals which were quickly posted online in real time. Twitter users posted at hospitals kept stock of blood supplies and pleaded for volunteers to come down and donate blood as stocks ran low with directions to the hospital.
Twitter user “naomieve” wrote: “Mumbai is not a city under attack as much as it is a social media experiment in action.”
Twitter was not the only social media site that played a critical role in the hours after the attacks began.
Google Maps showed the key locations and buildings being held with links to news stories, eyewitness accounts and links to images, as Flickr provided a streaming feed of haunting images live from the attacks. CNN reporters and other major broadcasters uploaded their Flickr images as well.
One of the major drawbacks, as in any situation where information is being virally spread, it’s likely that some of the posts on Twitter were unsubstantiated rumor or inaccuracies.
One major news website had egg on it’s face after reporting a couple of the inaccurate tweets, one of which was a tweet that circulated saying the Indian Gvt. was asking Twitter users to please stop tweeting live because of security issues.
It was suggested at one point as the Twitter-fury esclated that the terrorists were using Twitter to get information about what the Indian security forces were doing, which led to an avalanche of Twitter users tweeting, “Die DIE DIE if you are reading this!” Some Twitter users and bloggers later complained it was an avalanche of tweets and re-tweets that was hard to sort through.
One thing is clear: Twitter and Social Media have proven that social news sharing, can be faster and more critical in moments of emergency than mainstream media, and that the news is no longer under the global control of mainstream media, but in the hands of the people. At least in the hands of people with Blackberries or text-enabled cell phones.
~ Erika, http://TechnologyGoddess.com Social Media News
Social media Stories like This one…
This is an email I sent to CNN:
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I am the Twitter user naomieve referred to in the article. I would like to provide some context around the tweet quoted by CNN.com. The tweet Stephanie Busari refers to was NOT supposed to promote the social media aspects over the realities of what was happening to Mumbai.
I actually expanded further on this tweet to argue why I was disappointed that the focus of many tweets regarding Mumbai was to congratulate social media and Twitter for being faster on the uptake than traditional media.
I go on to expand on this in a discussion with Twitter user gyokusai where I say “#mumbai is a media experiment while mumbai is the city under attack that Twitter half the time forgets is bleeding”. That is - the Mumbai experience on Twitter is half genuine citizen journalism in action, and half self-congratulatory social media participants just happy to see a lot of publicity for Twitter regardless of the actual situation on the ground.
It is precisely that mix of content which was disturbing me at the time. Unfortunately that is also the reality of citizen journalism, the Twitter experience, social media - the whole online experience of no quality control or central control over the message to be delivered. I still believe Twitter is a crucial tool for circulating information, from, among and to the people who are in that moment and hoping for a happy ending. But I was and still am upset that users are more interested in what the Mumbai horror meant for Twitter, than what it meant for humanity. Unfortunately, for all the Twitter fanatics may like to argue, the two are NOT identical!
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Thank you for your comment naomieve… In balance, I as a blogger am conscious that my blog is a blog about social media business and how social media impacts global culture and business / marketing, and in this case the painfulness of the events in Mumbai of course overshadow everything.
Reporting on the painful events in Mumbai is not my blogs focus or market, but as a social media blog, reporting on how social media helped or hurt the events unfolding during Mumbai is.
My take is that the Twitter story is newsworthy because without the real-time communication via social media, some people may not have been helped as quickly, blood supplies may not have been replenished as quickly and lives may perhaps have been saved because of this. On the flip side, there was a lot of misinformation, unhelpful tweeting and other distractions.
Both of those are views we can only see when we step back from the pain, and allow ouselves to see things from different facets and reflections.
I agree it is important not to lose sight of what the real news is, to respect the humanity and emotional pain, while at the same time seeing everything from as many different facets of awareness as we can for the larger view, and then learning from the big picture so we can improve next time.
I’m glad that you are courageous enough to stand up even in the face of Mass Media to clarify your comment on CNN, and will of course approve it and make sure that your voice is heard as the article goes out from my end!
I send love and prayers for everyone involved in the events in India.
~ Erika : Technology Goddess