It hasn’t been a long time since Twitter became the place for people to get across important information in emergency situations. In essence, Twitter naturally became a place to share and spread local, national, or international top news.
We all remember the Twitter account that accelerated Egypt’s revolution, or the Twitter account for the Japan tsunami, or even the account informing us about the Boston Marathon bombings tragedy. All those incidents can now be called “real-time crises”. And they were.
Twitter has announced that it is launching Twitter Alerts, a feature that “brings you one step closer to helping users get important and accurate information during emergencies, natural disasters or when other communications services aren’t accessible”.
One important note: The feature won’t be available to the general public, as important information tends to get garbled and mixed up with other content, and this leads to misperceptions.
Twitter has stated that the feature will only be provided to organizations such as:
- Law enforcement and public safety agencies
- Emergency management agencies
- City and municipal governments, as well as their agencies and representatives
- County and regional agencies, providing services to cities and municipalities
- Select state, federal, and national agencies and NGOs
And they can be alerts for:
- Warnings for imminent dangers
- Preventive instructions
- Evacuation directions
- Urgent safety
- Information on access to essential resources
- Information on critical transit and utility outages
- Crowd and misinformation management
Now, how does this work for you?
Twitter Alerts will appear directly on your phone, either as push and/or SMS notification, with an orange bell (see image below). This will take place only when the relevant organisation or body marks tweets as alerts.
Twitter will be staying true to its core value – to be connected to the Real-time World . We have always wondered if a tweet appeared in our timeline is credible or it is just another prank. We believe that with Twitter Alerts the validity of certain information can at lease be guaranteed to a certain extent. They only thing to do is to re-tweet.
Related Stories:
- “Houston, we have a Problem!” – Managing a Crisis on Social Media
- Don’t Drink and Tweet!
- 8 Steps to Plan for a Social Media Crisis [Infographic]
You might also like
More from Twitter
How To Share A Tweet In A Fleet
Twitter rolled out Fleets globally this week, and with it comes a new way to share existing tweets with your …
Twitter Rolls Out Fleets To All Users Globally
After testing Fleets in several countries, Twitter is now expanding the Stories-like feature to all users globally.
Twitter Spaces Will Bring Live Audio Conversations To The Platform
Twitter announced it will start testing Twitter Spaces – Clubhouse-like audio conversation rooms – to its platform later this year.
Twitter Hires Famous Hacker As Its New Head Of Security
Twitter has named famed hacker Peiter Zatko, aka 'Mudge,' as its new head of security.
Twitter Expands Fleets To Users In Japan
As part of the next stage of a worldwide rollout, Twitter has announced the expansion of its Stories-like Fleets feature …
It’s Official, Donald Trump Is The Biggest Loser On Twitter
Joe Biden won the US Presidential election, and Donald Trump has become the biggest loser on Twitter. For real.
Can You Guess Trump’s Twitter Password? This Hacker Did.
A Dutch hacker claims he successfully accessed Donald Trump's Twitter account, simply by guessing his password (and you would have …
You Can Now Turn Your WordPress.com Blog Posts Into Tweetstorms
WordPress.com announced a new feature that lets you share entire blog posts as Twitter threads, helping you amplify your content …
Twitter Announces New Measures To Protect The 2020 US Election
In its effort to protect critical dialogue on its platform, Twitter is announcing several new product and enforcement updates.
