Ebola crisis commons: good practices

The Health Care Assistant Teresa Romero was discharged and officially allowed to leave after a month in hospital, what she did to visit her mother in the North of Spain. The press conference to explain how she has recovered from the Ebola virus was quite different from the previous one, offered by the Government when the Health Care Assistant was contaminated by the virus. The director of Carlos III hospital congratulated the whole team for their work, which is always a good way to start. 

Good practices made their way (after the pressconference on October 7^th) and I’d like to point them out.

An expert in health alerts, spokesperson

The first achievement to me was the nomination of a technical spokesperson. Fernando Simón has proved to be a sensible man capable of offering credible, accurate and timely information. His reputation as a technical expert is out of doubt and this was exactly what was needed to stop rumor spawning rapidly. Simón already dealt with the Influenza A crisis in 2009-2010 and is an expert in health alerts, not a politician. So, his credibility is immaculate and his good disposition to attend the media anytime in plain and clear language has made of him the best possible spokesperson.

(Though there was some other technical spokesperson, like Fernando Rodríguez Artalejo, Simón is nowadays the most popular.)

Fernando Simón, Spokesman of the special committee for the ebola virus management

A single message

Once you have a single spokesperson it is much easier to have a single message. The media know who to ask and that what he says is the official version, so there is no need to search information somewhere else. This fact, besides what I explained above, leaves rumor out of place. When the information is timely, accurate and credible there is no place for rumor.

The same applies to citizens, who are also eager for information and have a right to know.

@Info_Ebola_Es, a  Twitter official account to pull information

@Info_Ebola_Es Twitter account is, to me, the best tool to stop rumor spreading through social media. If you want to stop rumor going viral in Twitter, use Twitter. The official account, set on October 14^th (and already verified by Twitter) is an official place where it is possible not only to find last minute information but also resources, videos, links, FAQ, recommendations and all the information related to the Ebola virus inside and outside Spain.

Again, official, credible, accurate and trusted information. A one stop shop that makes unnecessary to go somewhere else to search information. If we admit that you must feed the information beast regularly, nothing better than a good big store where everything is at hand.

What is more, @Info_Ebola_Es is a place where the citizens can address the experts directly, ask their questions, have them answered and pull information. Let's not forget that Twitter is a two way channel. Unilateral information of traditional media is not enough (though it is relevant) in this new communications’ era, where nothing is more important for citizens than being capable of getting in touch directly with the source of information. 

Again, if I get what I want (certainty), It would not be necessary to go and search somewhere else.

To sum up, we have moved from improvisation to a 360 degree strategy, and the results are what is expected during a crisis.

Any more good practices I may miss?

MIT Laboratory for Social Machines, a bet to avoid a mayor emergency in Twitter

The MIT Media Lab announced the creation of the Laboratory for Social Machines (LSM), whose main goal would be the creation of programs aimed to develop collaborative technologies to tackle complex social problems, as you can read here. This would be great news for the emergency management world as long as Twitter itself developes new technologies  capable of detecting a big streaming growing up in Twitter. Once we have this problem solve, it would turn into the best tool for PIOs to control rumors when a disaster strikes. If we admit that Twitter is the biggest web of reporters existing ever (with all their drawbacks) and that it offers a synchronized experience, as @dkroy explained in #TATGranada2014, there is an urgent need to put an order in this huge stream of information. We’ll try to explain in this post (co written with @LuisSerranoR) why and how this new tool may help.

It is true that there are some ways to monitor conversation in social media (we are talking about Twitter basically here) when a disaster strikes. We can add a column either in Hoosuite or Tweecked with a Hashtag (ie: #Sandy, #yycflood) and this helps to monitor the conversation. I always tell my students that a tweet without a Hashtag is like going to a Big Store without a directory indicating you where the goods are. If you want to buy shoes you go to the shoe section- not to the bakery. So if you want to follow the news of a Hurricane your follow the HT with its name.

We could also follow the official source of information (usually the Government, local authority, and so on) or a list of influencers and people we trust as a reliable source of information, but still, we cannot stop rumors because we lack relevant information: where and when (the exact time) the tweet was posted being the more important. Moreover, we need to detect the rumor going viral from the very beginning.

Time is relevant to stop rumors going viral

The thing is we don’t have any app capable of detecting a huge stream of (false- not trusted) information expanding at an incredible speed. By the time we detect a rumor in social media, it would have been retweed thousands of times; it would have become viral and would have caused undesirable effects. We would be lucky if we can still control the situation if a big disaster strikes, considering the speed of Twitter. Just remember the 6.000 tweet per second in the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake .That's why Twitter would the one to offer the Technological solution.

Using a HT helps, but it is no enough to stop rumors

What I describe above is a way to follow only the information of a topic and spare the rest. But, as explained, besides detecting the rumor stream there are some other issues to solve: where and when a tweet was posted (most tweets are not geolocated); whether the information delivered is updated, relevant, and trustful and who is the source of information (when this is not indicated). Our main problem remains. We need a lot of hands (VOST teams) to stop rumor spreading through social media.

As @LuisSerranoL says, one day we will face a mayor disaster amd rumors will be so big that we will not be capable of controlling them. Unless we find a way to really scrutinize social media and get the information delivered in a manner we can decide what is worth and what is rubbish at the speed needed to stop a mayor disaster. 

500 million tweets per day and 241 million users deserve a solution to the Twitter conundrum, especially when we are talking of saving their lives, properties and the enviorenment. It is on Twitter's hands to provide a tool that helps emergency managers making civil protection to save  lives using social media.

If Twitter succeeds in creating this rumor detector, the microblogging site would move from being just a mass media to effectively save lives in emergencies. This step would be the base above which  Public Administration and VOST teams all over the world would build a holistic strategy to stop rumors.

As @dkroy heard  at #TATGranada14 from @LuisSerranoR speech: “100 firefighters cannot stop a tsunami without the help of they who control the web”. The Laboratory for Social Machines is undoubtedly a huge step to fulfill this goal.

Crisis, Journalism and Social Media

It’s no news that we are in crisis. Besides the economical one, we are witnessing a world where new things come up almost every minute. I’m talking here about Social Media, and what I would like to question is whether and how journalism's crisis is related to the  whole new scenario provided by Social Media and all the features attached to them, particularly when a crisis strikes, whenever it is a natural disaster or a topic related to a political issue.

When I studied Journalism at college, more than twenty years ago, I learn that I had to confirm the information with two sources. That was the way I started working at the radio in Spain and that was what any of us did. No one ever thought of broadcasting any little piece of information not corroborated by at least one trusted source. If a citizen called you, or the Radio Station, to give some information, they were a source of information you should check. Nothing more, nothing less.

Picture send by @Kailuland to @112madrid
showing a crack in Peñalara (Madrid)

Only yesterday a citizen called @kaikuland sent a message via Twitter,with some pictures, to Madrid Emergency Service, @112cmadrid, warning about deep cracks (up to eight meters) on the snow in Peñalara, a mountain near Madrid. In a wonderful example of citizen journalism, @kaikuland contributed to create civil protection culture providing graphical useful evidence through Social Media, as @LuisSerranoR explained in this video-post (in spanish) shared by the digital magazine iRescate. Well done.

Influencers and trusted information

On the other side, we also know of many examples where false information had been uploaded through social media. If we only have a look to Hurricane Sandy pictures, there is no need to insist on the topic.

But what happens when it is a traditional media with a reputation and millions of readers who shares non verified information? I'm talking now about spanish newspaper El País when the diary published a fake of Venezuela's Prime Minister, Hugo Chavez, on January 25^th 2013, with 5 columns in its paper edition. The picture had been  authentified by a news Agency, they say. It remained in the digital edition for half an hour while the paper edition was withdrawn.

Paper edition of EL PAÍS showing fake
picture of Hugo Chávez in hospital

As a consequences of this misfortune, El País has lost not only an important part of its reputation but also many readers. What for? To be the first? We all know that in this new scenario, speed is more related to being relevant and to avoid rumors when a crisis strikes than to being first when there is no need. Old days when journalist and the media were the first source has gone, forever.

We, the journalist, should remember that we are who know the rules and we shouldn't forget how they apply, since we are supposed to make journalism (according to law), despite the new social media or whatever new chances the future may bring. It is our responsibility to be truthful because it is not only our reputation what we should worry about, but in a disaster, it is matter of protecting citizens, their properties and the environment.

Thanks  to digital volunteers, integrated in VOST, traditional media as well as ordinary citizens who post  with responsibility, social media are self-correcting, and things always end up in the right place.

If the influencers are those with a reputation, you may lose yours, besides your influence, at once, whoever you are, a media, a journalist or a citizen, in one single click.

The question is: Is the Hugo Chavez incident, and many others we see almost daily, related with the fact that the traditional media are not anymore neither the only source of information nor the first? I think it is. Don't you?

Please feel free to share your thoughts.