Twitter - finally understanding the compulsion

By Sona Hathi, Assistant Editor, Melcrum

I've become addicted to Twitter in the last hour. I've finally understood that this is an incredibly powerful tool in the social media mix.

My sudden realisation hasn't come in the best way – I'm currently choosing Twitter to update myself on news of the Mumbai terrorist attacks rather than BBC/Times of India/Reuters. They're simply too slow. I'm getting real time updates from people who are watching the events unfolding in front of their own eyes.

And get this: the Indian government has asked Twitter to stop any tweets regarding the attacks. They want the search term "Mumbai" to be restricted, for fear of leaking information to terrorist networks and interrupting the rescue operations. How can you control something like this?


One tweet:  Govt asks for live Twitter updates from Mumbai to cease immediately."ALL LIVE UPDATES-PLEASE STOP TWEETING abt Mumbai police/military opts"

A part of me is now wanting to revert to official news websites as it's almost too frightening to read the Twitter updates.

Incredible... how people underestimate the power of "trendy new media tools".

Comments

[Sona]

Please note that this is not official, the request for Twitter users to stop tweeting on the attacks is not confirmed by any official source.

[Sona]

The Daily Telegraph website reports on the use of web 2.0 tools like Twitter and Flickr to break news on terrorist attacks.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/3530640/Mumbai-attacks-Twitter-and-Flickr-used-to-break-news-Bombay-India.html

[Alex Manchester]

Hi Sona,

Very true. I was keeping one eye on the search feed in the afternoon, with a browser window open on my second screen. It was a amazing, not only live updates of news, but blood donor information, contact numbers, volunteers offering to try and get in touch with people if you were worried about friends and family....

Then on the walk home last night I saw the mini-newspaper "MX" (like London's "Metro"), and it had a headline about the attacks. I thought to myself, "How irrelevant is that newspaper right now, there's no way in hell they, or even the full media websites could keep up with what was happening, and no way in hell could they communicate or describe what was happening the way 200 tweets per minute were doing on Twitter."

I wrote a post about it myself, similar to yours: http://is.gd/9etQ

[Sona Hathi]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your comment, the role Twitter has played in these Mumbai attacks is making news in itself. It's just massive and I can't even get my head around it. I did read yesterday that Twitter played an equally significant role in generating news at the time of the China earthquake.

What do you think about the idea that it could interrupt rescue operations? I mean that's pretty serious stuff. It's unfortunate that some of the most amazing and compelling things about social media - the transparency, the real time information, the opinion, the lack of regulation can simultaneously be the put offs? We can't trust everything we read on blogs/twitter - but how much can we really trust official news sources? I guess this is a debate that's been ongoing...

[Annie]

It's just incredible. A comment on this link:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5245059.ece

says that the Twitterers are misusing technology to create chaos:

Unfiltered, unsubstantiated comments only serve to spread wild rumors and speculation. It's another example of people misusing technology to create chaos, and have their 5 minutes of fame. The comments may only represent a biased view of the events.

Jim, Tampa,

[Darryl]

The Twitter/Mumbai debate is tricky – this might sound cliché, however, when these tools are being used for good (informing people that family and friends are safe and that justice is being served by informing authorities) it can be the most powerful thing in the world – however – terrorist could also be leveraging the tools to miss-guide and circumvent the authorities.

Information is power. Speed and access is no longer a competitive differentiator – the groups that are able to synthesis the information into well though out (mitigating risk) actionable outcomes will prevail.

This is also very similar to how Wikipedia scored points during past events. (I think 911 was the earliest example) – Wikipedia was the destination of choice to learn about the crisis versus traditional media.

Traditional media, in their ability to find facts to support content, is still a key success factor. However, once the social media tools better harness the ability to better recognize authority figures and confirm facts (rate posts based upon facts), this will change the value proposition once again.

[Alex Manchester]

@Sona: A lot of the negative comments on the Mumbai-Twitter coverage centres around "Did they or didn't they tell people to stop using Twitter?"

I think it's unlikely they singled out Twitter specifically, but certainly when the "stop live broadcasting" message went out, quite a few broadcast mediums stopped detailing the exact moves of the security forces (thank goodness!). The BBC re-posted that message, several TV stations pulled their feeds at the time, and the same point was reiterated later in the operation (like 24 hours, when it was still going on, a senior security force guy said 'I'm not going to say any more in case it compromises our operations').

As more comments have said, even professional media report on latest events as they hear news or rumours. Some broadcasters actually act like that, their manifesto being, "We will report but we'll look to confirm". Others such as the BBC have (or at least used to have) a policy that says they will not broadcast a point until they can confirm or double-confirm it, which often sees them caught out by more cavalier attitudes (or the public using Twitter or on a blog etc.).

We've also seen examples well before Twitter of TV interviews with eye-witnesses with incorrect facts. So that's "first-hand" experience, on mainstream media, but still incorrect. What's the difference?

Relying on one website or news outlet (for anything) is wrong, and similarly I don't believe most people are stupid enough to put their absolute trust in something like Twitter when these events break.

But the real, accurate stuff does get broadcast along with the inaccurate, and usually the accurate stuff is confirmed on there and elsewhere quite quickly, while the inaccurate stuff is debunked - and it's all just as fast or faster than traditional/heritage/mainstream media can do it.

What much of this comes down to is how much you trust any source. If you take any media these days at absolute face value without waiting to see if it's confirmed elsewhere, then you're asking for trouble.

[Philippe]

Hi Sona,

Like with all media, also Twitter can be used to "misinform" and to "spread rumors" but still...

You have to give it to the Twitterers that they corrected traditional media several times during the crisis.

There is a lot to say about using microblogging during a crisis and several organizations have already found out that these "signals" are definitely helping them to get the short message out there quickly.

PS: can't find you on Twitter... My handle is HoratioNelson, let's connect.

[Sona]

Thanks for your comments, all interesting points.

I know that Twitter richly enhanced my knowledge of what was happening during the attacks. At times it was confusing, so many people giving tiny bits of information and making quick comments, about 20 per second at some points. And to gather some order, I switched to tv channels. So, as usual it comes down to a case of not one channel replacing another, but rather complementing each other.

I think everyone treats media with scepticism these days, especially user-generated, social media. It's simply the nature of relying on someone else to tell you something rather than being there yourself.

But the power of twitter is still phenomenal. For me, reading the comments of people who were actually viewing it all first hand made the whole thing bigger, closer and more real.

You know what this is though? It's exactly how people must have felt with the invention of TV, when they could see news reports on television, and live reporting for the first time.

Everything should be questioned for accuracy, but I think the speed, interactivity and accessibility of this new way of reporting is what's truly amazing and differentiates it from traditional media.

[Sona]

Also, on the BBC's dot.life blog Rory Cellan-Jones talks about the "myths" that surrounded Twitter and the Mumbai attacks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2008/12/twitter_the_mumbai_myths.html

Phillipe I'll start following you on Twitter! Although I have to admit, I haven't really logged on since the attacks ceased. I'm now more interested in people's afterthoughts and I guess I'm looking for longer peices - blogs and such!

[Melcrum]

On the Twitter theme, you might want to check out: http://www.communitelligence.com/blps/blg_viewart.cfm?bid=63&artID=656

[Russell]

Great Blog Sona! On this note, there's a list of the ‘Ten People all Internal Communicators Should Follow on Twitter’ being compiled.

And of course Melcrum is there:

http://theparallaxview.com/2008/12/top-10-internal-comms-20-twitter-list/

But perhaps your readers suggest some others?