Indonesia Unite: Twitter Shows The West The News
by JONATHAN HARRIS, Managing Editor
Thursday’s bombings in Indonesia signified what may be the resurgence of terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Though no organization has claimed responsibility for the bombings that killed at least eight people in the Ritz Carlton and Marriott hotels in downtown Jakarta, authorities are already pointing fingers at Noordin Mohammad Top, the ideological leader of JI responsible for similar attacks in 2002 and 2005.
From the Los Angeles Times:
One day before the blasts, an Australian think tank warned of a possible resurgence of attacks because of competition among extremist factions of Jemaah Islamiyah seeking to establish dominance. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute report detailed a split between militants who support Al Qaeda’s strategy of attacking U.S. targets in Muslim countries and moderates who oppose it.
Of particular concern, it said, were a number of “hardened, experienced militants” recently released from prison who were ostracized by the group’s more moderate members. That combination of factors, the institute said, “raises the possibility that splinter factions might now seek to re-energize the movement through violent attacks.”
Of course, as most attacks of modest scale go in the western media, this one’s a bit undercovered. Luckily, for all of you glued to your Tweetdecks this Saturday, you can read all the updates on the hashtag #indonesiaunite, which has been a trending topic for several hours. Indonesians and others in solidarity against violence have been using this tag to show their support.
Of course, it’s already been co-opted by those with purely promotional causes, which puts a bit of a damper on the assertion that Twitter is the next great news aggregator. Certainly, it shows the trend of those showing support for the Indonesian people in the wake of violence, but deciphering those messages, weeding out the genuine from the garbage, would require a Robert Langdon-esque amount of intuition. It looks so tedious wading through the spam, I won’t even make my always-diligent interns do it.
Do you use Twitter as your down-n-dirty news source? I suppose I start there and then work my way out. Are you in Indonesia or do you know someone from there? We’d love to get some thoughts on the bombings and post them in the comments…sort of our own modified #indonesiaunite feed.
- Posted by Causecast
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IndonesiaUnite 's Official Twitter.
http://twitter.com/indonesiaunite
indonesiaunite = Indonesia Bersatu.
KAMI TIDAK TAKUT.
We Are Not Afraid.
Indonesia Unite
I hope to see a website/news outlet which marries immediate mass information specifically for the purposes of news. It seems that twitter is a great beginning but we need something so much more. People want to be informed and I hope we are on the verge of getting to a place where technology breaks through all of these political barriers and allows people to really have their voices heard.
the #indonesiaunite movement in twitter is more of a cause campaign than news-spreading communication. in fact, there's little news about the attack other than those we see on media.
twitter functions as news aggregator about the jakarta attack before the whole #indonesiaunite hashtag started. we tweeted contact infos and hotline numbers, and try to spread confirmed reports while stopping rumors of third, even fourth blast. in times of confusion, it worked.
As an Indonesian myself, with tons of family in or from Jakarta... I truly hope that Indonesia gets through this tough time and puts an even stronger foothold against these acts.
This is becoming regular for Indonesia unfortunately.