You’ve probably heard by now that the US Department of Homeland Security is working on an overhaul of its terrorist alert system, which would involve, among other things, alerting people through Twitter and Facebook of changes to the threat level.
If you were one of the 140 individuals who took a poll on Internet Evolution last week then you definitely heard about this and even had an opinion on it. Wow!
We posed the following question to readers: “The US government may begin issuing terror alerts via Twitter and Facebook. Are you in favor of this new warning system?” Here’s the response we got:
A near-majority of poll-takers, 48 percent, said “Yes.” And, why not? As some people pointed out on the boards, a site like Twitter or Facebook is just another medium where lots of people gather. It seems like a no-brainer to leverage these widely read and highly trafficked channels in order to alert people to a crisis. Were the government to use Facebook and Twitter alone, that would be a different and more ridiculous story, but that’s not the case. The social networks would only get the alerts after state and local leaders had been directly informed.
So, great. I know I’m excited. But it’s worth considering why 36 percent of our seemingly skeptical respondents said “No,” they are not in favor of such a system, and why 16 percent aren’t sure.
Hmm… Ponder. Ponder.
Well, perhaps some people don’t think this will make much of a difference. Alan Reiter in a video blog on the subject notes that these alerts are all well and good, but they don’t help him feel any safer than he would otherwise (good for you, Alan, stay on guard!).
But, more than that, if we take into account how much misinformation is spread through social networking sites, it’s worth considering that there’s the potential for real disaster here.
Let’s say you see a Tweet or Facebook status saying the alert level is “Imminent.” Sure, any Internet Evolution user would know that we should be looking for the “Verified” Department of Homeland Security Twitter account, or the “Official” DHS Facebook page… but let’s say a very viable impersonator pops up and spreads word of terrorism? And then it spreads from there through many people, channels, trusted sources? The rapid spread of this “information” could cause mass chaos before the government or the social sites themselves even catch on.
Once people are informed that they can and should be looking on Twitter and Facebook for terrorist alerts, they will be looking, and the potential to misinform here is huge.
This is not to say that the government is wrong for looking to the Web’s most populated hangouts in order to constructively frighten people. Rather, it just points to a flaw inherent in the Internet, and the problem with leveraging every social tool for every use.
We’ve lamented before about the perils of using technology in ways such technology wasn’t intended to be used. Despite parties’ best intentions, as we’ve seen with the recent political uprisings, it doesn’t always work out.
Facebook and Twitter are unfortunately not equipped to stop every fake account and fake update in its tracks, and these instances are often not caught until it’s too late. They might be sites where hundreds of thousands of people gather to exchange information, but they are also places where people exchange a lot of wrong information. Factor in widespread terror threats, and the potential for chaos may be Imminent.
- Nicole Ferraro
