CSI: Social Media

As many of you may already know, the case of missing woman Jill Meagher was solved overnight following an arrest and the discovery of her body.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about news breaking on social media (view here). I specifically stated, “The way news is broken in society has dramatically changed. Anyone can be a journalist these days”. And again, in the case of Jill Meagher, this statement is reiterated.  

Earlier this week, well before it had been announced on traditional media that an investigation was underway into Jill’s disappearance, a social media campaign had been launched. Tweets with variations of Jill’s name had appeared in 33 million Twitter news feeds and a Facebook page named “Help Us Find Jill Meagher” had been created by her friends and family, reaching almost 114,000 likes. As the developments of this story unfolded during the week, Victorian Police released CCTV footage of Jill’s last moments, which has been shared 7432 times on Facebook.

The Herald Sun reported that many Victorians jumped on social media the moment news broke that a man had been arrested over Jill Meagher’s disappearance. Her name had almost 12 million Twitter newsfeeds trending across Melbourne and Australia.

Last night while watching the news, my mum recounted a similar story of a girl named Sarah McDermod, who went missing in the early 1990’s. In the moments it took Sarah to walk from the train platform to her car, she had vanished. Police were never able to find her body and to this day, her disappearance remains a mystery. Of course there are probably hundreds of similar stories such as this which have occurred over the years years.

But what a difference twenty years makes. As technology has progressed, the introduction of CCTV footage and the power of social media are just beginning to aid society. Victoria Police media unit supervisor Natalie Webster said “social media campaigns could assist with highlighting an incident or investigation and take information to an audience that was not engaged in traditional media”. The use of social media to expand reach and share information such as CCTV footage inevitably aided Victorian Police solve Jill’s case in six days. There’s no doubt that this kind of technology could have also been handy in Sarah’s disappearance but obviously, was not available.

The power of social networking has developed immensely over the years and its potential to solve cases such as Jill’s is only just starting to be realized and harnessed.

Ta-ta Twitter trolls!

Last week, social media platform Twitter agreed to collaborate with Australian police to investigate threats and abuse made by internet trolls. Until recently, local authorities had to seek information from Twitter via the US court system. However, after a meeting between Communications Minister Stephen Conroy and Twitter’s head of global public policy, Chris Crowell, a process has been established with Australian police.

According to the Herald Sun, Twitter has agreed to:

1. Establish better contact with Australian law enforcement agencies, especially to deal with the most serious situations such as threats of violence or self-harm and;
2. Preserve information such as user account names, IP addresses and times of interactions and tweets for non-imminent threats such as trolling or bullying for as long as the legal process may need to access them.

This is a major breakthrough in the war against internet trolls. It comes after the Daily Telegraph launched a campaign named #StoptheTrolls to urge Twitter to unmask trolls and turn them in to authorities for prosecution.

Earlier this month, celebrity Charlotte Dawson was hospitalised over negative comments made by users on Twitter. See my blog post on this story. However, she’s not the first person and won’t be the last to be affected by trolls. Recently, Ms Dawson wrote, “If someone uses Twitter to encourage someone to suicide, to intentionally harass and intimidate people, THAT. IS. NOT. OKAY”.  

It is good to see social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter being proactive and receptive to community concerns. In Facebook’s terms of service, it clearly states “you will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user”. This sends a strong message that, just like in real life, offensive and bullying behaviour on social media is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. In particular this message is good for younger Australians to be exposed to, as we start to see bullying moving from the school yard onto social media. 

Obviously, stamping out internet trolls won’t happen overnight. But getting the governments, law enforcement, community and social media platforms to work together will not only bring awareness to the issue but penalise those who engage in such conduct.

Do you think the collaboration between Australian police and Twitter will prevent trolls from writing negative comments/posts?

News of the (social media) world

Once upon a time, to find out the latest news in our local community or in the world, we would read the morning paper or listen to hourly updates on the radio or watch the six o’clock news on television. But in today’s modern society, individuals are so information hungry that they want to be the first to know about news as it breaks. However, newspapers, television, radio and email updates aren’t enough to satisfy this. Even digital newspapers are struggling to provide real time and up to date news. More and more, we are starting to see that individuals and organisations are the ones breaking news stories using social media. 

Today, an AFL player tragically died while holidaying in Las Vegas. I first heard of the news while eating lunch and watching television. The news reporter stated that as the family of the player had not yet been notified of the death, that his name and club would not be announced. I logged onto Twitter and noticed that several AFL entities that I follow had also broken this news story. I watched my Twitter news feed as details of the story were unfolding. At first, AFL entities, individuals and organisations tweeted about the news and the players name was kept unidentified. Then the social media platform erupted as many Twitter users wanted to know more about this story. Within minutes, the football club which the player played for was leaked on Twitter. After another minute or two, sources then leaked the player's actual name. Although the player's name and the story at hand had not yet been confirmed by the AFL or the player's club, the story was retweeted by hundreds of Twitter users and an outpour of tribute messages began flowing to the point where four words began trending on Twitter in relation to this story. Even a memorial Facebook page was created before the information was confirmed.

What was sickening about this situation, was that that the family and close friends of the AFL player had not yet been fully notified of the death. Yet the news was trending on Twitter!? Sadly most of the player’s family, friends, team mates, ex-colleagues and the AFL community would have learnt of his death through social media.

Even at 5pm today, digital news websites such as The Herald Sun and The Age chose not to mention the players name, as family members were still be notified at that point.

The way news is broken in society has dramatically changed. Anyone can be a journalist these days.

I know that there are situations where it is handy to use social media to seek information. Such as, if individuals are walking to a train station and they read on social media that a particular train line is down, commuters can seek an alternate route to work.

A situation that I found interesting was when the 5.3 magnitude tremor that rocked Victoria in June 2012 prompted thousands of individuals to tweet and post about this on social media. People on the other side of the world knew that an earthquake had occurred in Melbourne via social media before any news organisations on television, radio or print could get an article together. The news articles that were finally documented for this story (almost 12 hours later!) were a collaboration of expert opinion and information and pictures sought from Twitter and Facebook.

News travels fast. It always has. There is nothing that can stop news stories breaking on social media. Individuals and organisations just need to put themselves in the shoes of the family and friends that today found themselves learning about the death of a loved one via social media. Although I know this probably won’t happen, I would hope that in future as a sign of respect, serious information should not be leaked online for the sake of breaking news. 

OMG! My employee said what?!

Employee’s behaving badly on social media is nothing new. Over the last five years, numerous employees have been caught out complaining about their boss, colleagues or working conditions on social media. Many businesses have implemented social media policies to combat this type of behaviour and guide employees using online platforms. However, as employees increasingly link their place of employment to their social media profiles, it opens a new can of worms. Businesses need to be aware that negative comments posted by an employee online can result in unwanted media attention and it could potentially damage the brand.   

For most individuals, it is common sense to be mindful when writing comments in social media. Unfortunately, there are other individuals (known as ‘trolls’) in the online community who deliberately post inappropriate, offensive, bullying and harassing comments to vulnerable social media users. These comments would never be said face to face and are posted online because such individuals can anonymously hide behind their computer screens. However, when an employee has the name of the business they work for mentioned in their social media profile, suddenly they are not so anonymous.

An example of this exact situation occurred over the past week when Monash University’s name was dragged into the Australian media after one of its employee’s negative comments was retweeted on Twitter by celebrity Charlotte Dawson. As the negative comment (unrelated to Monash University) was picked up by Ms Dawson, it quickly made news headlines. The employee listed Monash University as its employer on their Twitter profile and consequently the organisation was linked to the article.

This kind of scenario and behaviour by employees cannot be ignored by businesses. Regardless of whether comments are posted on social media outside of business hours or on a personal laptop, employees who list the name of their employer on their social media profiles are representing the brand. Therefore, it is imperative that they conduct themselves on social media just as they would in real life. Otherwise your business may suffer the consequences.

What do you think about this issue? How can businesses prevent and manage this type of scenario?