Last week, I wrote an article on the role of Twitter during the Mumbai Terror Attacks that was published in NewsCorp's Australian news website, news.com.au (on the front page at the time!). It started off with an editor from the website getting in touch with me (through a feedback email address listed on this very site) regarding the Twitter marathon I was on at the time. Here is the text of the article:

#mumbai: three days as a Twitter journalist

LAST Thursday’s terrorist attack in Mumbai in which more than 180 people were killed was a watershed moment for citizen journalism. City residents published minute-by-minute updates to the internet using social media platforms like Twitter, providing the latest facts along with local detail and context as the atrocity unfolded. Major news outlets could not match the detail and pace of their reporting. Aditya Sengupta, a 21-year-old Mumbai student, was one of them. Here, he reflects on the attack and the role of citizen journalists in the event. I had just gotten home from a very long day at college and was going through my recent emails and social network updates when I saw a couple of very shocking messages. A quick search through the web and a couple of frenzied phone calls confirmed the start of what was going to be one of the bloodiest and most horrific days in Mumbai’s history. One of the most interesting things to have emerged from last week's terror attacks in Mumbai is the significant role played by social media in the coverage of the tragedy – particularly the micro-blogging website Twitter. While chaotic, disorganised and unverified, Twitter provided fast and helpful updates to the carnage that was underway in the heart of the city. Updates started appearing on Twitter several minutes before those on local news channels and roughly an hour before they did on CNN and BBC, with Twitter users speculating about loud blasts emanating from various places in and around Colaba, South Mumbai. Reports of gunshots at several places soon followed, sparking speculation of a clash between gangs and police. Subsequent updates about grenade attacks, fires and hostage situations at other locations made it clear that this was no gang war. Because of the nature of Twitter, updates were passed on by "retweeting" them – reposting someone else’s update and, ideally, giving credit to the original author. Because of this the information was spread far and wide very fast indeed. After the initial incredulity and shock, and after the news channels had well and truly caught on, a lot of speculation and guesswork gave way to more accurate updates, largely sourced from various local news channels. Several constructive actions and initiatives were taken by Twitter users, such as publicising the descriptions of one of the terrorists, the cars that they were said to have carjacked and the fact that they had even carjacked a police vehicle. Other useful information such as links to video streams of local news channels and lists of important phone numbers (helplines, embassies and consulates) were quickly posted and disseminated. The human face of Twitter took on another dimension when local users offered to try and call the friends and family of foreigners. What started on Twitter eventually grew into the Mumbai Help blog. I remember trying to call the phone numbers that a commenter on the blog said belonged to Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg. They were eventually found dead at Nariman House (Mumbai Chabad House). Scans of the lists of dead and injured obtained by a blogger were sent to and posted on the Mumbai Help blog. A request for help on Twitter resulted in the images being transcribed into searchable text and republished. Calls for donations of specific types of blood were also posted and widely retweeted. In a very short while, several websites and blogs collated much of the information on Twitter, the mainstream media and other websites to create pages that served to be real-time compendiums of information – such as those at Pinstorm, my own website Vignetting Life and of course, Mumbai Help. Twitter users, photographers and bloggers Vinu Ranganathan and Arun Shanbhag posted several first hand photographs of the event, which were eventually used widely by the mainstream media. As the hours wore by, the importance of attribution of one’s source of news for each tweet became clear when rumours started spreading through the micro-blogging site. One particular rumour spread very far – that the terrorists may have been accessing the internet and the Indian Government had asked Twitter users to stop reporting. The appearance of the tweet on the BBC website added to the confusion, since a number of Twitter users cited the same BBC article as a source of their information, creating something of a circular reference. Subsequent rumours were quenched quickly, with Twitter users correcting other Twitter users and providing references. The truth to the speculation as to whether Twitter was actually used as a source of information by the terrorists remains to be seen. Most Twitter users sourced a majority of their tweets providing information about the siege from the mainstream media and by retweeting others who had sourced their posts from the mainstream media. Furthermore, many Twitter users showed a substantial amount of restraint regarding operational details and troop positions, despite the fact that such details were broadcast on some news channels. While the primary source of information on Twitter about the Mumbai attacks, the #mumbai search, had a substantial amount of redundant, unusable and irrelevant information, it nonetheless provided for a lot of important updates and clarifications. While Twitter might not necessarily be a reliable source of information, it sure is a quick and useful one. One reason I put the help page on my blog and started going on a Twitter "marathon" was because of the desire to use the resources at my disposal in the most productive manner I could. Another reason is the fact that I used to study about 10-15 minutes away from most of the attack sites back in junior college. Most of them are places I have been to and have some familiarity with. I would regularly frequent the British Council library which is pretty much in between the major attack sites. Most of my updates regarding the attacks were sourced from several mainstream media channels and from other Twitter users I trust.

[original location] It was originally meant to be an article for the Technology section. So you can imagine my surprise when I received a flurry of messages saying that my article was on the front page of the website. I was in college at the time and knew that it would not stay there for long. So I asked my friend Kushagra to get a screenshot of the page for posterity's sake: