Vital disaster role for social media

Instant links buoy relief efforts across floodwaters

The all-pervasive social media are once again playing an important role in Thailand's current flood crisis.

Over the past several weeks, as flooding in many provinces has deteriorated from a bad situation to a national disaster, social media have become the main channel for instant communication in a countryside lying under metres of water. Government officials, journalists, citizen reporters, relief organisations and volunteers have been kept abreast of local developments by real-time exchanges on Twitter, Facebook and others.

The government has set up an official website - http://floodthailand.net - to provide the most up-to-date information on the current situation and to list emergency telephone numbers. It also allows people to post messages seeking help, by filling in details of what they need and where they are.

The Information and Communications Technology Ministry has set up an official Twitter account to keep track of the flood disaster at @FloodThailand. It offers up-to-date information and details of government assistance.

As well as the website, the government has created a telephone call centre with the number 1111. The centre helps to keep the Twitter community informed with instant messages at @gcc_1111.

Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra is also using the social media to oversee and manage the flood crisis. The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) has a presence on Twitter at @bangkokgovernor and @bkk_best, and is on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bkk.best. It uses the channels to monitor the flood situation and communicate directly with BMA staff and others. It is also providing a regularly updated flood report at http://dds.bangkok.go.th/m.

A private-sector group called Thai Flood has been founded by Internet pioneer and founder of Kapook.com, Poramate Minsiri. It has become one of the main sources of up-to-the-minute information on flooding across the country. The group is also playing the role of an information centre and is helping to coordinate the relief efforts of other parties. While thaiflood.com is the information centre, the group communicates with its volunteers and the others via social networks at Facebook.com/thaiflood and at Twitter.com/thaiflood (@thaiflood and #thaiflood).

SiamArsa is another important group of volunteers helping flood victims. With wide networks on both Facebook (www.facebook.com/siamarsa) and Twitter (@siamarsa), the group of volunteers operates efficiently through the social media.

A group of volunteers from Thammasat University's Students' Union are simply called AorMorTor. They mainly offer assistance through a Twitter account (@Aormotor), helping to keep people informed about relief plans and facilities being prepared for flood victims by the university. AorMorTor's main means of communicating with other volunteer groups and the news media is Twitter. The group also uses a Facebook page - www.facebook.com/thammasatsu - as a channel for instant communication.

Many government organisations, especially those involved directly with the flooding, such as the Provincial Electric Authority (PEA), use both Facebook and Twitter. The PEA uses the social networks not only to monitor the flooding and provide assistance, but also to learn where it should cut off electricity services to severely affected areas. It has a Facebook channel at www.facebook.com/Provincial.Electricity.Authority and its Twitter channel at @pea_Thailand.

The Royal Irrigation Department is also actively using social media in the flood crisis. It regularly updates its services and assistance available via both Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/raorukcholpratan) and Twitter (@PR_RID). The department uses the social media along with its main website at www.rid.go.th.

Journalists covering the flooding for Thailand's news media, as well as "citizen reporters" are making heavy use of the social media as the main communication channel for instant situation reports.

Most mainstream newspapers and broadcasters are using both Facebook and Twitter as vital platforms to engage with the crisis in real time and to offer live reports from flooded areas. Journalists are continuously reporting developments in the crisis via Twitter and Facebook and their social-media updates are linked to their main websites, which provide more formal news reports.

"Citizen reporters" - as they are now called - are actively posting details of occurrences in their various localities to share the news with others on social networks.

However, while the social media are proving to be an invaluable communications link in the current crisis, officials have warned that social-media posts can generate ill-founded rumours as easily as offering accurate updates. People are warned to regard with caution news and information received via the social media and to consider carefully before sharing certain content. Information flows and spreads very rapidly over the social media, and can breed despair just as quickly as relief.