There has been plenty wrong with conversations on social media over the past decade and yet it’s hard to argue that online platforms are anything other than essential in an emergency.
This was almost certainly the case when Typhoon Hagibis made landfall on mainland Japan last weekend, flooding towns that lay in the path of the storm and leaving dozens dead.
By now, many media organizations appear to have developed a clear-cut formula on how to cover both foreseeable and unforeseeable events such as typhoons and earthquakes. Either ahead of a typhoon’s arrival or immediately following an earthquake, they publish comprehensive guides on what people should do in the event of a disaster.