Social media keeps Boston updated during manhunt

As details developed in the manhunt for the marathon bombing suspects last week, social media played a significant role in providing quick, albeit not always accurate, updates.

Steve MacDonald, spokesman for the Boston Fire Department and manager of its twitter account, said sites such as Twitter and Facebook were very important in keeping the public informed.

“Social media plays a vital role, and it gets more important in times of tragedy,” he said. “What’s good about social media was that, over the past few days, it was getting out important, official information to the public. Where people would always turn on the TV to find out what’s going on, they now just find out this way, and it’s a very useful tool.”

Lindsay Crudele, professional media director for Boston’s social media, said when Twitter promoted the hashtag #OneBoston — normally a $200,000 charge — for free, social media’s importance multiplied, but it was only useful because what the city posted was always true.

“Twitter’s campaign was a very, very powerful tool,” she said. “Those tweets were elevated by Twitter to reach hundreds of times more people … [but] we never had any retractions. We were just a constant reliable stream of information.”

Even though people received information online very quickly during the week, often through retweeting and reposting official outlets, officials warned against reporting on information obtained through police scanners during the capture of the second suspect Friday.

All official scanner sites were shut down Friday evening, but a few people who owned their own scanners continued to broadcast over the internet to tens of thousands of listeners, several of whom still posted what they heard online.

While the Internet is extremely useful, MacDonald said posting that kind of information crosses a line between what is helpful for the public and what is problematic for law enforcement.

“You would hope the public would just have some common sense to give a full-on description as a tactical operation is unfolding,” he said. “Everyone knew the police were there … but giving the exact positions can have consequences … people who tweet, you have some responsibility. You own your remarks.”

While data gathered by Alexa.com, an Internet information company, showed Twitter and Facebook traffic stayed relatively constant last week, many people reported turning to television instead of the Internet for news, despite several misreports.

Carolyn Brancato, a Walpole resident and founder of the hula-hoop company Hoop! There It Is, said she relied on television coverage. After finding out about the bombings at work through a flood of text messages from friends, she said she followed the investigation closely but stayed away from the internet.

“I was glued to the TV from Monday to last [Friday] night” she said. “I didn’t spend much time on Facebook or Twitter though. Those sites weren’t backed up and were mostly people’s opinion … I wanted to know fact more than anything … so I listened to the news all week.”

Brancato said the event hit her on a personal level when she saw the face of Sean Collier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer who was shot and killed on Thursday night by the bombing suspects, show up on the screen as a casualty.

“I went to college with him [Collier] at Salem State University,” Brancato said. “I saw that face, and it really hit close to home. I was just disgusted that someone could be so selfish not to care about the lives of other people.” Damon Roche, a Boston resident, was in California when the bombs went off, but said his son, who goes to school in Boston, kept him updated through social media. “He got info on Twitter,” he said. “Not five minutes after that, he called me. Sometimes the information is ludicrous, but any information is better than no information.”

Angus Young, a Boston resident, was one of only two employees present at Good Measures, a small startup in the financial district, when the bombs went off. He said he was never overly frightened, even on Monday, but the constant connectivity had a different impact on him.

“Yesterday [Friday] my boss had to shut down,” he said. “I knew at 7:15 a.m., and my family texted me right after, letting me know not to go outside. When you’re asleep, you don’t always go right to your TV, but most people have their phone right by them … It gave me a realization to how connected we really are in real life, not just on the net.”