in case you haven’t heard, social media is kinda popular, and landlines and phone booths are kinda not. Meanwhile, as anyone who’s lived in a population-dense area (and more of us are every day) knows, cell networks can get overloaded whenever a big event — like a natural disaster, or Andrew W.K. block party — happens suddenly. There’s only so much bandwidth for phones, so should we be able to call 911 via Twitter? It sounds crazy, but the Japanese government is discussing just that.A panel was pulled together yesterday in Tokyo to discuss the ramifications of social emergency calls. IT World has a report:The national Fire and Disaster Management Agency held the event in central Tokyo, the first of three it plans to hold through March of next year. Panel participants included the head of Twitter Japan as well as officials from Yahoo Japan, Japanese social network Mixi, and NHN Japan, which runs the popular group chat application “Line.” Representatives from government agencies and emergency services also attended.
“This is a discussion for when traditional voice-based infrastructure goes down during a natural disaster, to see if social networking can be used,” said Yosuke Sasao, an official at the agency.
Twitter Japan head James Kondo tweeted from the event that he’d like to strengthen the service’s ability to serve as a lifeline during crisis situations. Also Wednesday, the company’s Japanese blog posted a series of entries on how to use Twitter during emergencies, including posting and searching for emergency and transport information, as well as calling for help and how users can provide updates about their condition.
“If your circumstances allow, please add #survived to your tweets. This will help when family and friends that are worried about you search on your welfare,” one entry said.In the days and months after a tsunami devastated Japan last year, authorities (aided by Google, Yahoo, and the rest) used social media to help identify victims and link up displaced families. So emergency Twitter wouldn’t be just for your average house fire or cat in a tree — which would possibly make it open to ridiculous spamming — but would instead be more organized in terms of disaster response, which (hopefully), wouldn’t be hijacked by clowns.Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.
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