Social Media fights crime after the Boston Bombings

Social Media is helping to shape our world in all aspects, from online collaborations for projects and assignments to providing support during and after natural disasters and emergencies. The many different ways Social Media can be used during an emergency is still vastly unexplored but steps are already being taken to resolve this issue. An example of this can be seen during the aftermath of the Boston Bombings on April 15th, 2013. Two bombs went off during the Boston Marathon, during which 3 people died and up to 260 more people were injured. Authorities had come to the conclusion that when a large scale emergency such as this occurred, people retreated to social media to find out what was happening. Taking advantage of this, authorities used Twitter to instruct the general public in what they should do next.

This is the first example of how a Social Technology could be used in an emergency situation. After I completed research on some case studies, news reports, papers and articles on this topic, I began to have a better semblance of how the authorities handled the Boston Bombings using Social Media. Due to the speed of information that was being spread through twitter, it became the go to place for updates on occurrences in Boston during this troubled period of time. Through the use of social technology, information was distributed to the public much faster then any normal news outlet and people could easily be updated on what was happening without having to spend too much time searching for the information they required.

A coverage photo taken of the Boston Bombing incident.
Photo provided by vjeran_pavic, found here
Available through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Twitter was the main platform that was updated after the bombings occurred due to the initiative by a police commissioner who gave the order to use all forms of social media to communicate with the public, and this was a mere 10 minutes after the initial bombing had occurred. Information that was tweeted to followers provided updates on stages of investigation, casualty reports, road closures and more. Twitters followers rose to 300000 followers during this period of time.

Officials at the scene of the Boston Bombing incident.
Photo provided by vjeran_pavic, found here
Available through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Social Media was also utilised in another way to gain more information and evidence for the Boston Bombing incident. Images and video that had been gathered by two online groups were then shared with the FBI to further their investigation into the incident. I found this paper highly useful when writing this blog post because it revealed to me how crowdsourcing was used to help with the investigation, by utilising the 'virtual bystanders' that had been at the event. I thought this particular use of social technology was rather cool, as it took something as simple as taking a photo and sharing it, and transformed it into a means for the police to receive more information and footage of the event to help pinpoint the individuals who had planted the bombs in the first place. 

Bystanders and officials helping the wounded at the Boston Bombing incident.
Photo provided by smi23le, found here
Available through a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Is this the first instance Social Media has helped?

This isn't the first time that investigators have used this method either. In 2011, investigators used up to 5,000 hours of video from the public to find suspects during a riot in Vancouver, though this time they used the information they found differently. They proceeded to post the news clips they had taken, and made them available in kiosks around Vancouver, urging ordinary citizens to look at them and see if they recognised anyone within the videos. They also posted similar images on Facebook, and allowed citizens to post videos, images and more of the event to their page to further their investigation. The use of this method allowed them to successfully capture the suspects and most of the data they had been looking for had simply come to them, instead of them looking for it as usual. 

In my Opinion:

I believe that these methods should be utilised all around the world during large scale emergency situations, to allow for better collaboration between the public and the authorities. Information would flow a lot more easily, officials would receive information more efficiently that could be relevant to the emergency/capture of culprits, and the world would be able to handle large scale events like this more effectively as a whole. Steps are already being taken by social media platforms to allow members of their platforms to check if loved ones are safe during a disaster. Facebook has utilised a tool that does just that. It works by letting people who are in a disaster area alert other friends to the fact that they are safe. Meanwhile sites like Crowdmap and Ushahidi update people on events that are happening and show you real-time mapping of these events.

In Conclusion:

Social Technologies are growing and becoming more integrated into our everyday lives, and what you have seen in this blog post is just one of the up and coming ways it can be utilised to better society. I believe it would be wasteful to not make use of social technologies when they're most needed. What do you think?

Once again, this is Brian.

Signing out.