#Boston: Social Media in Action After the Tragedy

Explosions during a marathon in Boston didn’t hit only that area – they were heard all around the world, thanks to Internet and Social Media. That clearly shows that technology amplifies the effect of events, but it also can be extremely harmful or useful. Let’s see how the technological giants helped after the Boston tragedy.

Google Finds the Lost Loved Ones

Google Person Finder is a tool that this company made in 2010, after Haiti earthquake. It was active again and it followed thousands of records. It is a tool that helps people to find their loved ones – you can ask about someone’s whereabouts or give the information. It is a part of the Google Crisis Response, a member of Google’s unprofitable branch, Google.org. Since it has been a few days since the tragedy, the service is not active anymore and it points users to Red Cross for more information.

Twitter Monitors the Situation, YouTube Shows the Videos

Since Twitter is one of the fastest channels for information flow, after the tragedy even Boston Police shared information through their Twitter profile @Boston_Police. Twitter itself monitors the situation and deletes profiles that wanted to take advantage of the situation. @_BostonMarathon is one of those profiles – it promised a one dollar donation for every retweet.

YouTube assembled a special website, as a part of their YouTube Spotlight service, which gathered videos about the event – explosion itself, eyewitnesses’ statements… They also put official statements, like the one American president Barrack Obama gave after the tragedy.

Facebook, as much as we can tell at the moment, didn’t do something special, but it served as a platform for creating many groups and pages (like the official Boston Marathon page) where people could get relevant information. Also, all of the content – links, photos, videos, text – regarding the tragedy was quickly shared along this network.

Those are just some of the examples. Do you have more?