Social media emergency planning

Category: Technology Author : Steven Hodson Posted: November 29, 2008
Tags : Black Friday, emergency planning, Twitter
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Social media emergency planning - ya right!

When I read that above tweet earlier today I couldn’t help but give my head a shake. I mean seriously folks having a specific social media plan for emergency situations?

We can’t even figure out how to make social media something that regular folks can wrap their heads around and we expect them to follow tweets or wall messages on Facebook when an emergency hits. Remember this idea is being put forward so that people like those who stampeded and killed a temporary WalMart worker will follow emergency planning protocols - give me break.

As it is do you really think that people fighting each other to get a deal on Xbox as in the video below are gonna give two hoots about some stupid ass Twitter message as their city goes to hell in a hand basket? No I don’t bloody well think so.

It’s no wonder a lot of people think that social media is full of hot air sometimes.

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lowellfield 1 month ago 1 point
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I share your borderline-revulsion at the idea that the Mumbai terrorist attacks could have been prevented by Twitter. However, I don't think that a "social media plan" necessarily requires that panicked citizens follow new emergency protocols. I imagined a government official in a room looking for incoming messages describing an emergency situation, which only require that one or more people who see a guy pull a gun (or whatever) decide to sound the virtual alarm.

But it's hard to know how something like this could be implemented effectively while still maintaining some semblance of privacy (you'd have to just look at the universe of Tweets from a particular city), so yeah I guess I'm still a little skeptical.

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