Social media and natural disasters

Affected people’s use of social media during a crisis has become a common practice in recent years. Twitter, with its one-to-many format, is the platform of choice for many Internet users during a crisis. The infographic below presents a sample of 13 recent crises caused by natural hazards that generated over 100,000 Twitter messages or “tweets”. The information provided in the tweets, and the type of sources who tweet the most, vary widely between crises. For example, Government sources produced far more tweets during the Alberta floods (2013) in Canada than during Super Typhoon Haiyan (2013) in the Philippines. Overall, social media data is still an experimental field for humanitarian practitioners. But with a few frameworks of reference—including hashtag standardization in emergencies—the humanitarian community only stands to benefit from these technological opportunities.

Related Subject(s): Human Rights and Refugees