How Sandy Slapped the Snark Out of Twitter

[Commentary] Twitter is often a cauldron of snark, much of it funny, little of it useful. But as a social medium based on short-burst communication, Twitter can morph during large events — users talk about “watching” the spectacle unfold across their screens. It is, after all, a real-time service, which means that you can “see” what is happening as it happens. And then along came Hurricane Sandy.

For most of Oct 29, people on Twitter were watching an endless loop of hurricane coverage on television and having some fun with it, which is the same thing that happens when the Grammys or the Super Bowl is on. But as the storm bore down, Twitter got busy and very, very serious. In the early days of Twitter, there was a very big debate about whether reporters should break news on Twitter. That debate now seems quaint. Plenty of short-burst nuggets of news went out from reporters on Twitter on Oct 29 and they were quickly followed by more developed reports on-air or on the Web. Some people used the friction-free, democratic nature of the medium to intentionally stir panic although John Herrman, writing in BuzzFeed, suggested that “Twitter is a Truth Machine,” writing that “during Sandy, the Internet spread — then crushed — rumors at breakneck speed.”