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Wellesley High student linked to Mumbai Twitter rumor
By adamg on Thu, 11/27/2008 - 5:45pm
Amy Gahran tries to track down a story about Indian authorities going onto Twitter and asking people to stop tweeting about police and military activities in Mumbai so as not to alert the terrorists:
A simple Twitter search for "please stop tweeting" showed the earliest occurrence of this phrase in connection to the Mumbai attacks came from the MumbaiUpdates account, which appears to be run by a Twitter user named Mark Bao - a high school junior based in Boston, who apparently is not in Mumbai at the moment.
Bao had set up a Twitter account, MumbaiUpdates, to repost information about the current attacks.
Bao actually lives in Wellesley. On his Web site, Bao describes himself as "entrepreneur, high school student living in Boston," who's developed Facebook applications and his own online-advertising business.
His most recent updates on the Twitter account are to deny that he was the first to post the request and to deny that the request is bogus. For example:
indian police wanted live updates (incl media) to stop. I just disseminate info to twitter, I don't start it.
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Comments
WTF is her point, or your point in repeating this?
I think I don't understand Amy Gahran's point, or complaint. She appears to be safely tucked away in Boulder, CO, not in Mumbai.
I've screamed and fought as much as anyone has, and occasionally suffered slings and arrows, for press freedoms. But the request to not post police actions in real time, real or not, seems reasonable considering the situation.
These were highly organized attackers, and there was no way of knowing what real-time plans they'd made or what communications they had... and state security forces weren't able to control the situation. I don't see the problem, or why the problem merited all those words. The post is highly self-congratulatory.
Blah Blah Blah. She's never worked for a real journalistic outlet but is now paid to tell people how to do journalism. Sorry, but the real, field-experienced and field-trained journalist in me can't stand the pedestrian consultants who have ruined (what was left of) the profession over the past couple of decades. Things were better when the style consultants confined their ramblings to broadcast news, but I see now that they've leaked into think tanks, academia and the everyday press. Too bad anyone is listening.
In short: Leave Bao alone!
Perhaps I didn't explain the point wel
The point wasn't that people shouldn't post information that might help the terrorists. The point was whether Indian officials had actually gone on Twitter and asked people to do so.
A number of media outlets, including the BBC, had reported that Indian officials had, in fact, gone on Twitter to ask just that. It was a small sidebar to the real story, but interesting to people who follow social media (like me). Gahran was curious whether they'd actually done that. Looks like they haven't. So the story became interesting in another way: How do such "memes" spread, and if the social media can be used for good (and in Mumbai, you had people using them not just to report things faster than the mainstream media but to help get aid and information to people who needed them), could they also be used for bad?
yes they can
i was remembering this story when i read your comment
Text Messages Used to Incite Violence in Kenya
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story...
Sure
I still think she's just made a bunch of noise so she can be heard. I don't agree at all with what she wrote, and I hope her ramblings don't get excessive coverage.
I'm really tired of these wannabe media noisemakers explaining the "future of journalism" to the rest of us low-lifes (present company excepted, other than me).
umm, libel much?
umm, libel much?
She's just not a very good investigative reporter
plus she corrected the error, so it's just an "oopsie' now