The Miami Airport Twitter feed is working overtime to correct Hurricane Irma misinformation
The people running social media for Miami International Airport deserve some hazard pay.
The airport's Twitter feed has been feverishly countering bad information and responding to inquiries, as Florida is slammed by Hurricane Irma.
The airport, which sits on the southeastern tip of Florida, is currently closed due to the massive storm. That hasn't stopped its social media account from responding to requests over several days.
On Sunday, the account also proactively corrected people who tweeted out video of a flooded airport with claims that it was a scene from Miami. The video is from a flood at Mexico City's airport.
The video is still being shared on Twitter as having come from Miami. It should be easy to tell it's not from Miami, considering all, or nearly all, aircraft were flown out of Miami, and the airport was closed all day Sunday.
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The misappropriated video was even retweeted by President Donald Trump's director of social media, Dan Scavino Jr.
Scavino deleted the tweets and thanked the account for its help.
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The account has also been responding to individual questions about when the airport might reopen. It has even been sending some responses in Spanish.
The account is a prime example of the growing use of social media in disaster situations. Victims of the recent flood disaster in Houston were aided by people using Twitter, Snapchat, and Facebook to connect rescuers with people in danger.
Few official accounts matched what the Miami Airport had been doing over the weekend.
Social media has proven to be an important tool in disaster situations, but it has also become an easy way for fake images and bad information to spread quickly. The Miami Airport's use of Twitter to provide answers to citizens and stop the spread of misinformation is model use of social media.
Topics Social Media X/Twitter
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
