I won’t address whether this is true because I don’t know. There is a belief it has been slow to respond and inadequate in its efforts. Case in point: does anyone really know whether the Red Cross deserves criticism for a lethargic response to the storm? Among my friends and neighbors in Brooklyn, hating on the Red Cross abounds. In a fast-moving relief effort, a Wednesday morning image could have changed drastically by Friday afternoon.Īlso, rumors and misinformation spread as swiftly as the calls for help. And the Internet is not yet great at giving context to any event that doesn’t happen in realtime. A captivating image can become an Internet meme regardless of its veracity, while less compelling images are overlooked. But more transparency doesn’t equal more accuracy in fact, just the opposite. There’s one boat in the middle of the street somewhere in the Rockaways that shows up on my Facebook feed nearly every single day, snapped by a different friend of a friend. Now that Facebook and Instagram have made documentarians of everyone with a smartphone, Hurricane Sandy may have spawned the most documented disaster relief effort of all time. Heck, my sister, having heard from a friend that a nearby shelter was underserved, updated her Facebook (FB) status that she planned to make a trip down and an hour later, she had 20 bags of coats and toiletries and two lasagnas to bring.īut social media has downsides, too.
#Daniel meeter free
Displaced people turned to Airbnb to find beds, which New York Airbnb hosts volunteered to share free of charge. The New York City Fire Department turned to Twitter to help identify emergency needs. In the hours after the floods subsided last month, there’s no question these social technologies enabled fast efficient communication. Facebook groups I have recently “liked” include “Nobodies Helping Everybody” (168 likes), “Rockaway Relief” (9,311 likes), and “Giving Back to those Affected by Sandy” (3,975 likes).
But beyond Occupy, there are many individuals who have stuck a flag in the digital sand and declared themselves the captains of relief efforts. An outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Occupy Sandy is a loosely organized group of activists-turned-volunteers who have been using the web and mobile devices to bring food, supplies and help to people in need. Ad hoc relief efforts like Occupy Sandy have attracted attention for this already. This kind of superhuman volunteering has always been central to any relief effort, but Hurricane Sandy has showcased how social technologies can cause Andy’s small initiative to scale quickly.
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