Time Sensitive Information and Sharing

BREAKING NEWS:

AMBER ALERT : Edmonton, Kentucky,Quebec license plate (Quebec 72B 381).

“A Little girl, 3 yrs. old picked up by a man driving a gray car, license plate: Quebec 72B 381. Canada. Reblog this. It could save her. The Kidnapping is recent so do it.”

Holy crap… a little 3 year old girl has been grabbed.  I better share this on Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, Pinterest and my blog right away!  Getting as much information out there as fast as possible will save her!

Naturally, that is what a police or law enforcement agency wants.  That wildfire spread of urgent information to get as many boots on the ground and eyes around town looking.  And people WANT to help out.  They truly want to share the information.

The problem is, the above story has occurred in Florida, Arkasas, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Texas, involving the same car, same licence plate and same 3 year old little girl.

This isn’t the only situation that you have to consider this a problem.  Think about anything that has an expiry date.  How do you stop the sharing of information after it starts?  How do you ask your public, “Please share this information, but in three days you will have to remove it or you could be breaking the law.”?

Another example is the child that goes missing in the morning on the way to school.  By noon, the child is found safe and sound but for the next several days’ people are continuously sharing the information.

“Please share to help find this child safely and quickly”

Problems

• How do you ensure that your community doesn’t get desensitized to emergency information?
• How can we make certain that the information is fresh and accurate? 
• How do you continue to get the community to share information without over sharing or extended sharing?

Answer

• You can’t.
• You can’t control any information once you hit send. 
• You can’t worry about an Amber Alert living on for three years.
• You can’t stop information from going global.

You can’t because the alternative does not work anymore.  The alternative being, not sharing the information or sharing it only in the traditional formats.

What you can do it make certain that you equip your community for great sharing.  You educate them about what the sharing responsibility means and you take on some responsibilities of your own.

Tell your community right up front if there are any possible challenges to sharing the information.  For example, identifying a young offender in Ontario has a short time allowance and once it is over you can’t identify the person without further judicial approval.  Continuing to identify that person could be putting your public in legal hot water.  Tell them.  Adivse them, guide them.

Amber Alerts have an expiry date as well.  Why not put that expiry date right on the image you release?  Possibly even the link to Amber Alerts in your area so that people can verify prior to sharing?

Most importantly, you need to be monitoring your channels.  If you see any information get shared, verify it, check into and counsel your community.  When an expiry date occurs, tell the public, thank everyone who shared the information but ask them politely to stop sharing.  That can be a tricky fine line.

I don’t care if you have to tweet, “Thanks for sharing the information.  Thankfully XXXX was located at ZZZZZZ time.” One thousand times, you do it.   Because if you don’t correct the information, then at some point your community will become less inclined to help you out…and that would be tragic.

The other way that people will automatically become desensitized is a lack of priority to your information.  If you treat every missing person and every BOLO and every  community safety caution with an equal level of importance, sooner or later people won’t care, won’t stare and won’t share.

Remember, calls to action (please share, please RT, call if you see) are essential adds to your information when you are asking for the help.  They are also essential when you are thanking your public for helping.  Asking your public to share your thanks, your located alerts and your cancellations will help to get more attention to the second volley of information.

“Thank you. Mr Bunny has been located. Please share our thanks with your community.”