Terror Attacks in Mumbai & Overestimating the Potential of Twitter

I really wish people would stop spreading FUD on twitter and the blogosphere about these attacks … the media should also stop any coverage of such events and let the police/army/nsg do their jobs … Don’t they understand how stressful it is for the security agencies to work when they know that the whole country is watching them ! The ATS chief lost his life yesterday which might be attributed to all the eyeballs that were on him at that moment !

twitter helps is spreading the word faster on the web… it can be a rumor or a fact… but we always need to goto television or the new websites to confirm if the tweet is indeed a fact

I say, twitter has made geeks like me closer to the real world, and we at twitter are showing the first pictures, this means a lot. So why should you ban it?

The problem was when I first heard about Mumbai today CNN was talking about the stupid Myspace cyber bullying case. I came back to CNN a half hour later and they were on some other lame story. Yet Mumbai news on twitter at the same time was coming fast and furious. MSM might be good at coming up with video of a breaking news story, but the actualy story itself develops first on Twitter.

I feel we should ban live reporting by TV channels when anti terror operations are in progress, as terrorists get all latest updates for free on their TV screens and pose greater challenge to commandos trying to hunt them down.

i Experienced the blast and saw a taxi blast in front of my eyes last night. I could not sleep.

Well said. What people often miss is that people who tweet are not really seeing anything themselves live or talking to police or politicians or anything, they are just tweeting what mainstream media is showing on TV. So it’s same news, just round about way of getting it. An individual with tweet can have as little information that it could be as less trustworthy as planned misinformation by media.

thank god you did not say ‘India TV’ for your news source.

It is what it is, people. I have found more than enough useful information on Twitter (e.g. helpline info, streaming news sources, direct quotes from television and radio), and yes, rumors get spread around, regardless of the medium.

If this causes people to be wary of what they read online, it’s a good thing. Let’s not encourage false hope in breaking news television, which can be just as suspect (Anthrax anyone?).

Better yet, I see business opportunity here. A Snopes for Twitter would be a nice addition to the community, wouldn’t you say?.

thanks for this but these live telecasts muct be baned

Is it me or should the title of this thread/news read “Under” estimating instead of “Over”? What am I missing?

Twitter can be used as a news service. However because this is done as a second thought it is not well organized as there is no systematic way to enter news so that it can be easily found and separated from the noise.
Because of this there is no easy and fast way to search for this information.

We have built have integrated a news posting service into our micro blog “Conversations” This ability to post news to the microblog is also integrated into our feed reader and both services post to twitter.
We you search on adelph.us for a news story you will receive results that are from both main stream media as well as from related micro blogs.

I can’t forget the importance of twitter-casting. Last month, I was watching a movie with friends in a mall and just got updates on twitter about blasts in Noida (my hometown). Just came to know that blast site was very close to us.

The TV channels covered the news after 45 minutes and news sites….. after one & a half hour.

thanks @twitter.

Well, the conversation is sensible. Almost all of us accept that twitter is largely reliable yet some effort to test genuinity is necessary.

I was following twitter search for a while to catch up on the updates, but after a while realized ppl r not taking even the basic checks before retweeting. Looked like everyone was following the search and copy pasting them on twitter. I hope ppl will start looking for a certain level of authenticity like multiple sources before retweeting

Good point, Amit.
Twitter is just one of the tools available for Online Reporting. People are a bit over-enthusiastic with promoting Twitter as the future of journalism. There is only a limited number of things you can do in 140 characters. Most of the updates on Twitter you find on Twitter are actually links to actual news stories. So, there you go.

In case of blogs, writers give at least a thought to what they are posting. There are credibility issues which is given the stick in case of Twitter.

In end it comes down to this:
On blogs, you will find rehashed stories and some original opinions.
On Twitter, you will find rumors, spam, noise and the occasional first-hand report.

How do blogs compete with Twitter as far as timeliness is concerned?
1. Install Prologue themes on wordpress-powered blogs.
2. We need prologue type plugins for other blogging tools.
3. We need faster posting methods, including easy-to-use mobile blogging tools.
4. Maybe everyone starts using laconica to integrate Twitter-like system into their blogs and web sites.

I never have, I don’t and I guess I never will search for world news on blogs. I consider blogs more for editorials and discussion than for raw news other than technical.

what has happened in mumbai is absolute non-sense,terrorists have proven how easy it is to enter into a major city of a country like India…..???!!!!! what else can we say..? irresponsible politicians should be blamed, if the system is rock solid no animal(terrorist) will try to enter into our territory…world is watching at us..it is a wake up call for the IRRESPONSIBLE CITIZENS of India. WAKE UP WAKE UP for god sake please lets do our duty with whole heatedly and help the army to do its job with more confidence… after all we are just losing valuable bravos with our own carelessness….NSG which is the top security group of the country has sacrificed two jawans…with our carelessness … this is just our own blunder to send the signs to them(militants) that they can come freely and do what ever they want in our land…!we have lost large number of innocent civilians,police,army and the NSG. no one has a perfect answer.. there is a proverb which goes like this “when our gold is pure there is no need question the goldsmith” if politicians and other officials if they are doing their duty in proper way we need not worry about our security,lets put our hand on our heart and ask for a genuine answer right from our soul ..ARE WE PERFORMING OUR DUTY CORRECTLY…??? NO NO NO! NO WORDS ARE LEFT TO DEAL WITH TERRORISM..ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS LETS GET INTO THE ACTION,IF WE ARE DETERMINED AND FEEL THE COUNTRY AS A FAMILY THEN TERRORISM IS A SMALL PROBLEM TO DEAL WITH!!! we need to answer the martyrs…they need a answer who are watching us far away from a place from where they are not going to come back again….ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP! JAI HIND!

Hi this is with regards to the terror attacks in Mumbai. I am a Mumbaite, was kind of taken aback by the whole patronizing of the NSG. Sure they did a good job, but calling them the heroes of the hour is quite out of line.
It took the NSG three days to neutralize a situation that should have been resolved in three hours.If they are so good maybe they can be half as fast to respond and neutralize a situation. After all it was just luck that there wasn’t a hostage situation to respond to….I mean three days?.
Secondly, they were the last to arrive on the scene like the following morning.And managed to contain a situation which was already contained.
Also one of the NSG personal was arrogant enough to brief the press of a volatile situation.Fortunately no one from the Mumbai police did so, even though they saw much of the action
The real heroes of the hour were the Mumbai police,
1)who shot down most of the terrorists with their
2)Faced them with no body armor and antique (.303 although am sure on the model)rifles
3)Protected the citizens when the needed it most
4)prevented more civilians from dying
5)Fell in the line of fire when they could have simply waited for the ‘Heroes of the day” to save us
I think its outrageous to call the NSG the guys who saved the day,simply because there was no one left to save
Also its quite ironic that the press failed to even mention the names of the officers, other then the senior ones in their reports
I’m not trying to underplay the role of the NSG here, just feel strongly that it was the Mumbai police who saved Mumbaikars at the end of the day

@Hemant: I agree that the NSG shouldn’t get all the accolades but I also don’t think that Mumbai police really saved the day. Infact, I think the mumbai police really should have been better equipped and the fact that they faced those guys without body armor or better guns, if I may say so, was quite stupid.

The nsg could have cleared the area sooner if they were given the permission and go ahead to, say, blow up the whole building !! The operation took time because they were trying to save the hostages.

If you think there was no hostage situation, then I really think you should think about the whole thing again.

The mumbai police force was not even equipped to save themselves, you really think they *contained* the situation ? The first people they resorted to were the navy marcos and the army and then the NSG came … Dude:

1. You really need to get your facts clear.
2. You reallly need to understand the role of the different security forces in the country.
3. You need to understand the security setup of a vast country like india.

I’m not saying that the police didn’t do anything and yes, they did save the lives of a lot of people, but the NSG did what they were asked to do so, and they had their own role to play. Everyone is praising them because they were the ones trying to cause minimum damage and save maximum lives, while fighting the terrorists. The mumbai police btw, thought this was a gang war !

Oh and the NSG guys didn’t go about on a tour of the place without their body armor on, probably thats why they lost a less number of their men !