Re the whole unpleasantness - what good does it do to call 911 if you don't know the tweeter's location? It's not like the police have access to Twitter's servers or anything.
Anika
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A bit of the context http://friendfeed.com/e...
- Ontario Emperor
What good is calling 911 when there's no one there. 3 days ago, 911's outgoing message-bot: "If you are being attacked or are in personal danger, dial '2'" True story.
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
Chris, what do you mean by something you can't see?
- Rochelle
One excellent point - if a Brightkite location had been tweeted within the hour, perhaps some good could have been done. However, I often refrain from revealing my exact location on a social media service, and I'm sure others do also.
- Ontario Emperor
So.. you're threatening to shoot someone over it, Chris?
- Rochelle
If you can't see it - let's just say that someone tweeted "Getting attacked!" While I certainly don't question anyone's intentions in trying to help, the chances of helping someone in this situation with the paucity of information is small.
- Ontario Emperor
Chris, what does Akiva have to do with anything?
- Rochelle
Good use of paucity, OE!
- Rochelle
Sheesh people, my bad. I was in the middle of typing an update. Sorry!
- Shevonne
My eyeroll, let me show you it.
- Rochelle
I have, however, thought of another case in which one could help, even if Brightkite is not used. Perhaps if a person had said on Facebook that he/she was going to a Bobby Vinton concert at 9pm, and if you saw a tweet at 9:30pm indicating some type of trouble, you could direct police.
- Ontario Emperor
Shevonne, no problem. I didn't see the original tweet, just the aftereffects. And I guess it's better to be overly concerned than overly non-concerned. This is a general musing, not a musing on the particular situation that occurred earlier.
- Ontario Emperor
Police will show up to a Bobby Vinton concert?
- Rob Michael (Atmos Trio)
OK, maybe paramedics. :) I was just listening to Akon's "Lonely," so I had Vinton on my mind.
- Ontario Emperor
Nice comment deletion by Chris White.
- Rochelle
Oy vey.
- Akiva
Mohomed, now that I'm thinking through it, there are some situations where someone CAN help in a case like this. Obviously, you don't want to assume that just because someone lives in a city, that person is IN the city at the time a "help" tweet is issued. More information is needed from other sources, such as other social media services, the person's phone number, whatever.
- Ontario Emperor
How do you get to the point of being "_overly_ non-concerned"? By doing something else other than checking everyone's tweets constantly? "Sorry, I didn't know you were in trouble, I was watching TV". "Insensitive clod!"
- Andy Bakun
Andy, I had an incident in the back of my mind (can't remember the victim's name) in which someone was being harmed, and people were physically there and COULD have helped, but didn't. And there was the recent case in which someone committed suicide on videocam; the person's location was known, but help came hours too late.
- Ontario Emperor
I just remembered the name - Catherine "Kitty" Genovese. http://www.angelfire.com/comics...
- Ontario Emperor