“Get Out of Jail Free” Twitter
When James Karl Buck was detained at an anti-government rally in Mahalla, Egypt, he got the diplomatic cogs turning with a simple message via his cell phone to Twitter: “Arrested.”
Over the next several hours, Buck was able to update friends and family using the micro-blogging site, some of whom then transposed his messages to other blogs of their own. Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, told CNN that there have been more and more stories of people using the service during natural disasters. In Buck’s case, the speed at which news of his situation was disseminated led to his school hiring a lawyer on his behalf. Less than 24 hours after his arrest, he left the station with another one word blog entry: “Free.”
Read the whole story at CNN.com.
