aloeyogurt and moonstone7
The magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck Osaka area on June 18th. It severely damaged the infrastructure, causing at least 5 deaths and hundreds of injuries. Facing the disaster, people utilised SNS in several ways, which shows its pros and cons.
For instance, Twitter was used as a powerful, real-time information source. Among many tweets on the earthquake, users in Osaka area mainly used Twitter to get information or share their anxiety, while users who previously experienced the Great East Earthquake posted useful life hacks and some advice such as transforming tuna cans into candles or storing water in the bathtub. These tweets indicates how people learnt from the past and cooperated with each other.
photo : @Yu_to0911
Meanwhile, we have to be careful of the dark side of SNS even in emergency as well as usual because of its anonymity. As the earthquake in Osaka area broke out, many users posted tweets that told pet cats fled from their house with surprise all at once with #mayoineko on Twitter. They made use of SNS as an effective way to let information diffuse and gather them easily.
However, in that situation, some users stole tweets like that just as mischief. On Twitter, we can’t make judgements what is true or false. As a result, those who really want help by SNS and information could be doubted due to some malicious tweets.
SNS such as Twitter are quite useful in emergency we can use them more often than cell phones themselves because of accessibility and anonymity. However, on the other side, some users may abuse those characteristics and they result in a confusion even in emergency. We will continue to learn from past experiences and acquire consciousness to judge what is true or false.
Work credit
https://mainichi.jp/articles/20180620/ddm/041/040/084000c
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/survival-tip-fashion-an-emergency-long-lasting-oil-lamp-from-a-can-of-tuna?comment-order=popular
I sometimes use Twitter to get information but I have to remember everything on Twitter is not truth and useful.
It is wonderful that SNS can help people who suffers from the earthquake. Although SNS is a good way to share information in this kind of situation, we still have to be careful not to believe the false information.
The same situation occurred during the 311 earthquake in Japan. There were so many false information flying, leading people to panic. There were also chain mails going around about things that were not true. Many people believed in the information from the mail since E-mails are more reliable comparing to social medias such as twitter. Even if we knew that false information goes around on social medias, if it is an event of a an emergency, we tend to believe thing that are on the internet. We need to be careful on how we understand informations that are on the internet.
We are easily confused by such information that majority of people firmly believe it is true . When Kanto-Daishinsai occured in 1923, many Koreans were killed by Japanese who believed the rumor ” Korean will drop poison in a well and try to kill Japanese.” We should judge information carefully before we believe it.