Brandon Zickefoose's List: Digital Citizenship

• • To serve and protect: How the Boston Police used Twitter after Marathon attacks
• • In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing this past April, many turned to the Boston Police Department (BPD) Twitter stream to find reliable updates on rapidly unfolding events. Twitter emerged as the go-to platform during the five-day manhunt for the bombing suspects. Initially, the site was the only way to push out information after two pressure-cooker bombs killed three bystanders and injured 282 near the race's finish line on Apru 15. Cheryl Fiandaca, bureau chief of public information for the BDP, spoke to Taäics about managing the crisis and updating the public. She provides a behind-the-scenes look into how the BPD used Twitter to connect with the community and provide critical information during the search for suspects.
• • Pouce blocked area cell phone service after the bombings due to concerns that phones might have detonated the explosives. The BPD s blog is a popular media source (with nearly 30,000 monthly views),but heavy user traffic caused it to crash, so Fiandaca usedTwdtter for BPD's first announcements. She tweeted from the @Boston_Police handle 10 times during about 90 minutes, including: "Boston Police confirming explosion at marathon finish line with injuries" and "BPD asking people not to congregate in large crowds." Fiandaca said that Twitter proved to be the quickest and most reliable way to communicate with Boston residents, marathon runners, friends and family
    members, the news media, BPD employees and other law enforcement agencies. The BPD posted 148 tweets during the five-day manhunt that ended witli the capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
• • Afterward, the final tweet thanked BPD's many supporters: "The Boston Police Appreciates the love and support of the USA GOD BLESS AMERICA. BOSTON STRONG!" Before the bombing, the BPD's Twitter account had about 54,000 followers. According to Mashable, this grew to more than 330,000 followers afterward. The account reached nearly 49 million people within five days. Fiandaca credits this to accurate, trustworthy information disseminated in a dmely manner. When multiple news sources, including the AP and CNN, erroneously reported that a suspect was in custody, BPD tweeted to set the record straight. "We corrected a lot of misinformation," she says. "I think we became a very reliable, solid way to get information."
• • There are limits, however, within a "command and control" work environment. BPD does not communicate information
    that would put police officers' or community residents' safety at risk during an ongoing operation. For example, it
    tweeted media alerts asking the media to refrain from mentioning or broadcasting the exact locations of law enforcement officers during search operations.
• • Instead of releasing specific details, the BPD issued precautionary tweets on the morning of Friday, April 19: "There is an active incident ongoing in Watertown. 
    Residents in that area are advised to remain in their homes. More details when available." Another read: 
    "#CommunityAlert: Door-to-door search 4 suspect in Watertown continues. Uniformed officers searching. Community consent critical." And an additional one said: "#MediaAlert:WARNING: Do Not Compromise Officer 
    Safety by Broadcasting Tactical Positions of Homes Being
    Searched." Throughout the tense night and following day, with Bostonians in virtual lockdown, the BPD continued
    to provide information, including a notice that the evening's Bruins and Red Sox games, the Big Apple Circus performance and a civil service test were postponed, and that the local transit authority and taxi service were suspended until further notice. There were also messages of encouragement and condolences, such as: 
    "#CommunityAlert: Chief Ed Deveau thanks Watertown residents for their exceptional patience & cooperation" and
    "The BPD extends thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of fallen hero and MIT Police Officer Sean Collier."
• • Fiandaca says tliat Twitter was a valuable tool for managing the information and helped the BPD "connect directly with the community." The public information
    department responded to all requests as quickly as possible, she says, and its tweets as well as its followers' retweets but a cohesive community, reduced panic, engaged the public during the search for suspects and kept people safe. The matter-of-fact tone and the 
    attention to accuracy made the BPD an important and trusted source of news. "We're not in the business of sensationalizing or trying to create emotions," Fiandaca says. The goal with Twitter was to provide useful and accurate information that would encourage public safety.

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• (CBS News) Social media has been a vital resource this week is locating the Boston Marathon suspects. However, with such a huge flow of information, there can be negative repercussions, and misinformation runs rampant.

• The internet was so utilized during the investigation that the Boston Police Department relayed the initial information about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's capture via Twitter, immediately confirming his arrest.

  Dan Ackerman, CNET senior editor, told "CBS This Morning: Saturday" that he believes it was the right decision as it was the fastest way to get information out.

• "When you have a developing news story you look to Twitter because you can get a lot of information from different sources at the same time," he explained. "You have a real-time feed of TV, local stations, and newspapers."

  Meanwhile, since the bombing, citizens spent collective hours analyzing the footage on their own, with their own suspicions, and using sites that aggregate data like reddit.com to scrutinize details. While these citizen researchers were helping, it can also create a lot of problems and a larger danger for misinformation.

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• Twitter and Facebook created national response, may help authorities.

• Fifteen minutes after Sara Bozorg, a doctor at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, finished the Boston Marathon on Monday, she heard the first loud blast. Then she heard the second one, and spied the smoke rising.

  Police quickly descended around the finish line and, with cell phones mostly not working, Bozorg and her boyfriend repaired to his home, turned on the news, and logged onto Facebook, where Bozorg posted that she was OK and that her phone was down.

  "I have been following my friend's Facebook [account] who is near the scene and she is updating everyone before it even gets to the news," Bozorg said by e-mail on Monday night.

• "Authorities have recognized that one the first places people go in events like this is to social media, to see what the crowd is saying about what to do next," said Bill Braniff, Executive Director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism. "And today authorities went to Twitter and directed them to traditional media environments where authorities can present a clear calm picture of what to do next."

  "We know from crisis communication research that people typically search for corroborating information before they take a corrective action—their TV tells them there's a tornado brewing and they talk to relatives and neighbors. And now they look at Twitter."

• On Monday, information about the blasts spread more quickly on social media than through traditional news outlets. "I was first notified to the event by my daughter, who was on Twitter, and that was before it came out on CNN," said Anthony C. Roman, president of a security consulting firm in New York called Roman and Associates.

  That way of instantly spreading information far beyond the affected area also builds an online community around such events that can cross state and national borders. On Monday afternoon, #BostonMarathon quickly became a trending hashtag on Twitter.

  "If I'm here in Washington, D.C., and I'm on Twitter and can demonstrate my empathy, it helps create this idea of resolve or community solidarity with people who are there on the ground in a way that uni-dimensional media doesn't do," said Braniff. "Online, I can express outrage or sympathy."

  "I get a greater sense of unity—the we is a much bigger we," he said.

• Terrorism experts said the proliferation of photos and video on the Web through social media might also help authorities identify the perpetrators of the attack.

  "All the media provides a tremendous asset for the forensic evaluation of the explosion event," said Roman. "Authorities can start examining the pictures and tapes looking for individuals near the receptacles where the bombs were found and individuals not fitting the profile of the general spectator can be identified."

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• In the wake of this afternoon's (April 15) bombings during the Boston Marathan, Google has launched a version of its Person Finder tool to search for those missing in the area.

   

    According to CNN, two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing two and injuring others. Around 100 people are being treated at local hospitals. The bombs were spaced between 50 yards and 100 yards apart, officials said. No threats were reported prior to the race and no suspects have identified.
• Currently, Google's Boston Marathon Person Finder is tracking 2,500 individuals. People can register those that they are looking for, as well as people at the event that they know about. To find someone, select the box "I am looking for someone," and type in the name. Google will display matching records. If no information is available, you will have the opportunity to create a new record.
• On the other hand, if you have information about someone who was near the bombing, you may select the appropriate box, type in the person's name and their status. Google encourages those that were at the scene to add that their information, which could be helpful to others.
• Google Person Finder has a history of helping located people after a crisis or natural disaster, including victims in Japan, Haiti and New Zealand.

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• The investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings took major strides forward Wednesday, but the day was also marked by confusion, as TV news outlets first said a suspect was in custody and then had to back off that claim.

• The investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings took major strides forward Wednesday, but the day was also marked by confusion, as TV news outlets first said a suspect was in custody and then had to back off that claim.

    

  The positive news is that federal and Boston-area law enforcement sources are saying that significant progress has been made toward identifying a suspect in Monday's twin bombings, according to various sources including CNN and The Boston Globe.

    

  Video from surveillance cameras at the department store Lord & Taylor, near the bomb blasts at the marathon finish line, appear to have played a central role in the progress, identifying the face of a suspect or person of interest in the case.

• "The camera from Lord & Taylor is the best source of video so far," said Dot Joyce, a spokeswoman for Mayor Thomas Menino, according to The Boston Globe's website. "All I know is that they are making progress."

    

  What's less clear is whether a specific individual has been identified by name, or how close officials are to taking anyone into custody or making an arrest.

• Early Wednesday afternoon, CNN began reporting that an arrest had been made.

    

  But less than an hour later, before 3 p.m., the network was retracting that claim. It quoted both Obama administration and local sources saying reports of an arrest were untrue.

    

  "Despite reports to the contrary there has not been an arrest in the Marathon attack," the Boston Police Department said on Twitter.

    

  A press briefing is scheduled for later in the afternoon.

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• Over the last few days, thousands of people have taken to the Internet to play Sherlock Holmes.

  Armed with little more than grainy surveillance camera videos, cellphone photos and live tweets from police scanners, they have flooded the Web with clues, tips and speculation about what happened in Boston and who might have been behind it.

• Monday's bombings, the first major terrorist attack on American soil in the age of smartphones, Twitter and Facebook, provided an opportunity for everyone to get involved. Within seconds of the first explosion, the Internet was alive with the collective ideas and reactions of the masses.

  But this watershed moment for social media quickly spiraled out of control. Legions of Web sleuths cast suspicion on at least four innocent people, spread innumerable bad tips and heightened the sense of panic and paranoia.

• "This is one of the most alarming social media events of our time," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia. "We're really good at uploading images and unleashing amateurs, but we're not good with the social norms that would protect the innocent."

  Even as first responders were struggling to tend to the needs of the three killed and more than 170 injured in the Boston Marathon blasts, Web forums were cranking out rumors that there had been four bombs instead of two, that an area library had been targeted and that the death count was well over a dozen.

• In short order, forums like Reddit and 4chan were alive with speculation — based on little or no evidence — that the culprits were Muslim fundamentalists or perhaps right-wing extremists.

  In a mad rush to be the first to identify the perpetrators, anonymous posters online began openly naming people they believed had planted the bombs. Caught up in the mania, some traditional media ran with that information. Thursday's New York Post cover showed a photo of two men at the marathon under the headline "Bag Men" and implied that the two were prime suspects. In fact, neither was a suspect and one of the men, Salah Barhoun, was a high school student from outside Boston and had nothing to do with the explosions.

• Once the FBI released images of the actual suspects, things really got out of hand. Online gumshoes scoured the Web for faces that might match and illustrated their work with drawings, circles and other home-brewed CSI techniques.

  Some amateur sleuths focused their suspicions on Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student who has been missing since last month. Using an animation tool, they used an image of Tripathi to highlight similarities between his face and the FBI photos of one of the Boston bombing suspects.
• However, Tripathi has no apparent connection to the marathon bombing. That was underscored Friday, when authorities revealed the identities of their suspects, two ethnic-Chechen immigrant brothers — Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of Cambridge, Mass.

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• Anyone who has turned on a television, radio or computer in the past couple of weeks is aware of the monsoon of misinformation surrounding the Boston Marathon bombing. But it was social media that led me astray.

   

  The early days after the attack were chaotic: Innocent people were misidentified as suspects by citizen vigilantes on Reddit. Chechnya was widely confused with the Czech Republic as the origin of the bombers. And the New York Post got so many things wrong I’m starting to wonder if the publication thinks of inaccuracy as its signature feature

• Almost immediately, social media was buzzing with word of another bombing, one that had supposedly killed at least 30 people at a wedding celebration in Afghanistan. Reports alleged that U.S. planes had mistaken traditional shooting at the wedding for hostile fire.

   

  Angry commenters across the Web criticized the complete absence of coverage of this terrible story by any mainstream news outlet, and expressed indignation that three lost lives in Boston should mean so much more to us than 30 in a foreign country. What many, myself included, did not initially realize, however, is that  the reports were about a real incident that had occurred over a decade ago.

• I was among those who not only believed the report, but circulated it by posting it to my Facebook feed and bringing the incident up in conversation. I self-righteously argued that we seem not to care about the suffering of citizens in Afghanistan, and thus don’t even find it worth reporting.

   

  I saw the story as the perfect tool to help me correct the intolerance of those who see all Muslims as extremists. But when I discovered that the report was about an incident from 2002, I stopped short, deflated by the likelihood that somebody had intentionally circulated the old story in order to serve an agenda.

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