Twitter is still relatively new as a service on the web but is experiencing explosive growth and has broken through into mainstream adoption.

Recent world events have thrust Twitter into the spotlight, first with the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, then two weeks ago when a US Airways plane crashed into the Hudson River, and most recently with the bushfires sweeping through Victoria here in Australia.

Twitter spreads news fast

Twitter’s simple approach of connecting uses via short, 140 character messages has proven a very popular method of spreading news fast.  Two main features contribute to this the most:

• ReTweets – a ReTweet (or RT) is basically the same as forwarding an email message.  When you receive a Tweet from someone you are following you can ReTweet it to your own followers.  This “many to many” communication path means news can spread around the world very quickly.
• Hashtags – hashtags are an unofficial feature of Twitter.  As Twitter gained popularity people realised they wanted a way to track topics, not just follow specific people.  Hashtags combined with Twitter Search became the solution to this.  By adding a hashtag to your Tweet it will show up in people’s search streams for that tag, for example many Tweets about the Mumbai attacks were tagged with #mumbai.

There ain’t no hashtag sherrif in this town

The problem with hashtags (although this is also why they work so well) is that anyone can create one.  There is no moderation for who starts a hashtag and who is then allowed to use it.  I can easily start a hashtag of #surfing if I want to Tweet about surfing.  But if I choose to tag a Tweet with #surfing there is nothing to stop me making the Tweet about some other unrelated topic.

Hashtags can be critical news streams for those most in need

As the Victorian bushfires began several hashtags appeared on Twitter for news and alerts that people were Tweeting to each other.  The most popular hashtag became #bushfires, and was being used to Tweet links to news items as well as outpourings of grief and messages of support.

As the tragedy unfolded people began relying on the #bushfires stream for news and alerts such as where new fires were appearing and evacuation warnings for areas in the path of the firestorm.  Around that time two things happened.

• Sitepoint announced their bushfire fund raising initiative and asked several high profile bloggers and Twitter users to Tweet about it.  Their followers then dutifully ReTweeted, all of which included the #bushfires hashtag.  Although the Sitepoint fund raising effort has been a huge success it flooded the #bushfires stream for a few hours with ReTweet traffic.
• Stephen Fry ReTweeted the UK Red Cross bushfire appeal to his followers, also including the #bushfires tag, which caused another flood of ReTweets in the stream.

These two two messages (both of which are still being ReTweeted occassionally by well-meaning people) unfortunately upset some of the people trying to use the #bushfires stream for critical news.

Moderating the Twitter stream

This incident has left me wondering if there is even a solution for this problem.  The open nature of Twitter, and the freedom of the hashtag system that has been adopted by the community, for the most part combine in ways that are positive and valuable to the Twitter community.  However during emergency situations like these the openness becomes a problem.

How can hashtags be controlled during emergencies to maintain the value of critical news streams?  What new measures or systems could be added to Twitter to maintain a strong signal to noise ratio when the Tweets are flying thick and fast?

Donate to the Australian Red Cross bushfire appeal

Sadly as I write this blog post the bushfires continue to burn and lives continue to be destroyed.  If you wish to donate to relief efforts you can do so directly to the Red Cross Victorian Bushfire Appeal, or take up the Sitepoint offer in the next two days.

Tagged as: Bushfires, Twitter