I was in Washington, DC on Septermber 11th, 2001. Sabrina was pregnant with Zavier at the time. Like most Americans, there are parts of that day I will remember forever. The main thing I remember from that day is not sadness or shock, but rather utter panic. Panic that seems silly now, but for many of us in DC it was a very real panic.
Shortly after the workday began, Washington DC was under a full blow attack. We weren’t sure who the attackers were, but we knew they had attacked the World Trade Center. They had attacked the Pentagon. They had detonated a car bomb on the Mall. The US Capital and the White House were expected to be attacked any minute. There were bombs in governmental buildings all over the city. We weren’t quite sure whether the subway and bridges had been attacked or not. Was the water supply safe? Now there was smoke at the US Capital. Who was it? China?
There was discussion of which evacuation routes were the safest, and which were clogged. It was time to pack your bags and get out of town. Sabrina and I were heading to Tennessee. We were planning our route when we started to get a clearer picture of what was going on.
Of course, now, we know that most of that was not true. At the time it was being reported as fact. Shortly after lunch time it was all pretty much sorted out. There were fighter planes overhead and armored trucks and soldiers on the streets. DC was safe.
It was amazing to watch the communication networks in action that day. I first heard about it via IM (thanks Matt!). Cell phones failed. The internet was sporadic at best. The TV and radio worked (if even a little too well). Word of mouth worked.
Now we live in a world where there are many more information outlets. People are publishing audio, video, and text in real-time as events unfold every day. I am wondering how this would impact another event like 9/11. How would all of the additional information outlets impact the propensity for misinformation?
Would hours old content be uploaded to YouTube and interpreted as new information? What about text messages? They already have a tendency to show up late, and without a sent time stamp there is no way to know if they are new or old. Would people have received text messages from loved ones in the World Trade Center hours (or days) after they died and be given false hope?
Without editorial review would people’s biases impact their ability to get accurate information out? Would those biases be evident? Remember how everyone in DC was looking for a sniper in DC? He was a white male in his 30s driving a white van. What kind of biases would propagate on blogs and how would those posts filter into the main stream media?
Or maybe it would work the other way around. Maybe there would be witnesses everywhere who could more accurately describe what was going on where they were. Maybe the major media outlets would be able to filter this information quickly and accurately to provide an accurate portrayal the first time.
I wonder if Twitter is busy building an infrastructure that can handle another 9/11, even if not all of the service providers will be functioning. Who knows? Regardless, it is interesting to speculate on.
