Monitoring Social Media for Disaster Response Purposes

U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Watch Center analysts typically monitor and review publicly available Internet social media and use a set of key words to find and retrieve content relevant to FEMA for situational awareness purposes. FEMA aggregates information to share with internal and external partners as appropriate using this social media content and other publicly available content. This may include a FEMA-written narrative of the situation being described through various media or social media outlets, as well as links or uniform record locators (URL) to the publicly available open source resources that FEMA references. FEMA’s social media monitoring under this initiative is neither designed nor intended to collect PII from members of the public; however, given the unpredictable nature of disasters coupled with the voluntary and unrestricted nature of social media, it is possible during in extremis situations for FEMA to collect a limited amount of PII from the public through its monitoring of Internet social media [2]. Publicly available sites monitored by FEMA Watch Centers include

• ? ABCNews Blotter http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/
• ? Al Sahwa http://al-sahwa.blogspot.com/
• ? allAfrica http://allafrica.com/
• ? Avian Flu Diary http://afludiary.blogspot.com/
• ? BNOnews http://www.bnonews.com/
• ? Borderfire http://www.borderfirereport.net/
• ? Collecta http://collecta.com
• ? Counter-Terrorism Blog http://www.counterterrorismblog.com/
• ? Crisisblogger http://crisisblogger.wordpress.com/
• ? Cryptome http://cryptome.org/
• ? Danger Room http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/
• ? El Blog Del Narco http://elblogdelnarco.blogspot.com/
• ? Facebook http://www.facebook.com
• ? Flickr http://www.flickr.com/
• ? Global Incident Map http://globalincidentmap.com/
• ? Global Security Newswire http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/
• ? Global Terror Alert http://www.globalterroralert.com/
• ? Global Voices Network http://globalvoicesonline.org/-Aworld/americas/haiti/
• ? Google Blog Search http://blogsearch.google.com
• ? Google Flu Trends http://www.google.org/flutrends/
• ? Guerra Contra El Narco http://guerracontraelnarco.blogspot.com/
• ? H5N1 Blog http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/
• ? Hulu http://www.hulu.com
• ? IBISEYE http://www.ibiseye.com/
• ? InciWeb http://www.inciweb.org/
• ? Informed Comment http://www.juancole.com/
• ? iReport.com http://www.ireport.com/
• ? It’s Trending http://www.itstrending.com/news/
• ? Jihad Watch http://www.jihadwatch.org/
• ? Krebs on Security http://krebsonsecurity.com/
• ? Live Leak http://www.liveleak.com/
• ? LongWarJournal http://www.longwarjournal.org/
• ? Magma http://mag.ma/
• ? Malware Intelligence Blog http://malwareint.blogspot.com/
• ? MEMRI http://www.memri.org/
• ? MexiData.info http://mexidata.info/
• ? Monitter http://www.monitter.com/
• ? MySpace (limited search) http://www.myspace.com
• ? MySpace http://www.myspace.com
• ? MySpace Video http://vids.myspace.com/

• ? Narcotrafico en Mexico http://narcotraficoenmexico.blogspot.com/
• ? National Terror Alert http://www.nationalterroralert.com/
• ? Newspapers on Twitter http://www.newspapersontwitter.com/
• ? Picfog http://picfog.com/
• ? Public Intelligence http://publicintelligence.net/
• ? Radio on Twitter http://www.radioontwitter.com/
• ? ReliefWeb http://www.reliefweb.int
• ? RigZone http://www.rigzone.com/
• ? RSSOwl http://www.rssowl.org/
• ? Shrook RSS reader http://www.utsire.com/shrook/
• ? Social Mention http://socialmention.com/
• ? Spy http://www.spy.appspot.com
• ? Stormpulse http://www.stormpulse.com/
• ? Technorati http://technorati.com/
• ? Terror Finance Blog http://www.terrorfinance.org/the_terror_finance_blog/
• ? Threat Level http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/
• ? Threat Matrix http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/
• ? Tickle the Wire http://www.ticklethewire.com/
• ? Time Tube http://www.dipity.com/mashups/timetube
• ? Trendistic http://trendistic.com/
• ? Trendrr http://www.trendrr.com/
• ? Trends Map http://www.trendsmap.com
• ? Tribuna Regional http://latribunaregional.blogspot.com/
• ? TV on Twitter http://www.tvontwitter.com/
• ? Twazzup http://www.twazzup.com
• ? Tweefind http://www.tweefind.com/
• ? Tweet Meme http://tweetmeme.com/
• ? Tweetgrid http://tweetgrid.com/
• ? TweetStats http://tweetstats.com/
• ? Tweetzi http://tweetzi.com/
• ? Twellow http://www.twellow.com/
• ? Twendz http://twendz.waggeneredstrom.com/
• ? Twicsy http://www.twicsy.com
• ? Twitcaps http://www.twitcaps.com
• ? Twitoaster http://twitoaster.com/
• ? Twitscoop http://www.twitscoop.com/
• ? Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com/advanced
• ? Twitter/API http://www.twitter.com
• ? Twitturly http://twitturly.com/
• ? Ushahidi Haiti http://haiti.ushahidi.org/
• ? Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com
• ? War on Terrorism http://terrorism-online.blogspot.com/
• ? We Follow http://wefollow.com/

• ? Who’s Talkin http ://www.whostalkin.com/
• ? WikiLeaks http://wikileaks.org/
• ? YouTube http://www.youtube.com [3]

In addition to following the social media feeds of numerous organizations around the world, FEMA Watch Centers use a number of key words to search various social media sources. These key words are shown in Table 15.1.

Table 15.1 FEMA Watch Center Key Words for Search