US May Issue Terror Alerts On Facebook, Twitter 104
CWmike writes "The US government may start issuing terror alerts using Facebook and Twitter, which were thrust again in the spotlight recently as lifelines in Japan. An AP report Thursday, based on a 19-page draft of the plan that the news service obtained, said DHS is working to overhaul the current color-coded terror alert system. 'The new terror alerts would ... be published online using Facebook and Twitter 'when appropriate,' the AP reports, 'but only after federal, state and local government leaders have already been notified.' Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at the Yankee Group, said the government entrusting something as critical as terrorist alerts to Facebook and Twitter shows how important social networking sites have become to people's lives. 'There are hundreds of millions of people using Facebook and Twitter. For many of them, it's their primary communication tool,' Kerravala said. 'That means it's a great way to get information to a massive number of people. Maybe the best.'"
How could this possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Interesting)
Lets see, two hundred and fifty million friends and followers all running for cover the first time some 133t hakzor compromises the DHS accounts. Quick, better make Facebook/Twitter federally protected entities, so we can gitmo anyone posting or tweeting anything that might be mistaken for the US government.
Facebook and Twitter couldn't possibly pay the advertising bill that would bring in this many new users. Now Ma and Pa Polyester HAVE to belly up to the meat market, no more ignoring Facebook/Twitter.