To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. SOCIAL NETWORKS TO THE RESCUE Officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) noticed how quickly Liu was disseminating information, as well as how quickly she gathered a following on Twitter. Due to her effectiveness, the agency decided to supply information directly to her so that she, in turn, could share it with her network. “We were looking at her network and we said,‘Hey,this person has some great information,’” John Shea,a FEMA public information officer specializing in new media, said during remarks in March at a forum on Federal Agency Social Media-Crisis Communication in Washington, DC. “We can’t say it’s verified but she was doing a lot of research on her own.” So FEMA decided to leverage Liu’s network and push information about the federal government’s response to the wildfire to her so that she could tweet it to her contacts, Shea told Homeland Security Today. FEMA has been seeking such ways to interact with the public through social media and enabling people to spread official information through tweets, blogs and other networks—whether those people are pleased with the effectiveness of FEMA’s response or not. “For better or worse, you’re interested in this information,” Shea declared. “How can I get my information, which I know is verified, into your hands so that you can discuss it?You can pick it apart. I want people to pick it apart. The worst thing we could do is not engage people who are negative toward us. All that does is encourage them to say, ‘Well, I told you government is not listening.’” land Security Today. The Chinese government employs individuals known collectively as the 50 Cent Army, which consists of 50,000 astrosurfers, who are political or public relationsWeb surfers out to support or market their cause. They literally receive 50 cents in pay for every positive comment they write in support of the Chinese Communist Party for any situation in online conversations. The government of Iran is gearing up to duplicate the effort. Although US federal agencies may not have interest in such propaganda, it is important for them to follow social media conversations and engage in them to meet the needs of victims in a disaster,according to Mishra. The United States also could learn from situations like the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008, where victims communicated quickly through social media sites while the Indian government was helpless to engage them. “In Mumbai,what happened is what is going to happen in any crisis situation going forward,” said Mishra. “Pretty much anywhere in the world, if people capture information on their phone, they either could send it out as an SMS [short message service] or a text message, or they could take a photograph and upload on a service like Flickr or Kwik, a live video service.” Indeed, services like Ushahidi, which started in Kenya early last year, allow anyone to gather distributed data via SMS or the Internet and depict information on a map or a timeline for use in a crisis situation (www.ushahidi.com). While Ushahidi specifically provides representations of disaster-related events,everyday social media sites like Twitter and Flickr can provide critically important information about what is happening in a disaster situation. In Mishra’s view, the first step for government agencies is to monitor such information as it becomes available. The second step is to engage in conversations to direct people away from wrong informa- Tracking the conversation Government agencies globally are generally doing a poor job of using social media in a disaster, said Gaurav Mishra, the Yahoo! Fellow in International Values, Communications, Technology and Global Internet at Georgetown University. The countries that are doing the best with it currently are China and Iran,Mishra told Home- SENSAPHONE REMOTE MONITORING SOLUTIONS ® P ROTECT Y OUR: EMERGENCY RESPONSE CENTER VACCINE STORAGE DATA CENTER COMPUTER ROOM OTHER CRITICAL FACILITIES Notification Via: Monitor For: SENSAPHONE products provide remote monitoring of critical equipment and facilities. Abnormal conditions generate immediate alarm notification along with detailed data history. www.sensaphone.com 44 June 2009 877-373-2700 Contract GS-07F-9463S | Homeland Security Today Magazine This month’s issue is now available online at…