The Role of Social Media in Crisis

It was 2 o’ clock in the early morning. I couldn’t fall asleep and play on my mobile phone due to the jet lag. A notification popped up, “All traffic in Wuhan will be suspended from 10 AM.”

Simply, Wuhan was preparing for the lockdown while the people in this country was in sleep. I was in such a shock and immediately switched to the Weibo (a Chinese microblogging website) to see if there was anyone discussing about this. Surprisingly, some people got the information earlier and already on their way to other cities. Some of them shared their successful ‘escape’ experience, which of course caused controversies on the following days. All comments on social media was blaming those who escaped Wuhan intentionally for lack of social responsibility.

In the following days, all mainstream social media had all kinds of SOS messages from desperate ordinary people asking help for his/her dying father, weakened mother, grandfather with chronic diseases, grandmother who lives alone ……. Access to medical services seemed like a lottery. They bet their last hope on social media to gain the exposure and attentions from the government and society.

Later, even public hospitals in Wuhan sent an open letter on Weibo to collect medical protective equipments from individuals, organizations and the whole society, although the mayor of Wuhan promised that the city had enough supplies. People got confused but still many of them did their best and donated the required equipments to these hospitals.

Besides these SOS messages from hospitals and individuals, there were also many heart-breaking videos exposing the situation in Wuhan during the first several days of coronavirus in China, such as burnout nurses collapsed and cried loudly in the office, a patient waiting in the hospital fell down, a girl chase her mom’s catafalque (see the video below), etc.

The girl’s mom dead due to the coronavirus. She did’t have chance to say goodbye. The catafalque took her mom’s body to creamation. She was crying and calling her Mom.

All these emotions: sorrow, furious, helpless, and anger reached the peak in China when Dr Li Wenliang dead on Feb 6th 2020. He was one of the eight ‘rumor mongers’ detained by Police. Regardless of the restrictions and coronavirus, People initiated the commemorative activity on Weibo for Dr Li Wenliang by turning off the light and blowing whistles at 9 pm on Feb 7th. And some of people even went to his hospital and mourn for him (see the video below).

People in Wuhan mourn for Dr Li by blowing whistles.

In essence, Weibo played the role of facilitating information flood of coronavirus epidemic and sensationalism in this epidemic. During the first week of coronavirus, Weibo was full of grief and anger. It shaped people’s perception to this novel coronavirus. As one of the silent witnesses, I forwarded these SOS messages, felt sorry for people’s loss and hoped for the best. Meanwhile, these emotions along with messages passed on and immersed into our blood. This led to a way further social psychological impact on people who experienced it. It requires a huge societal effort to recover from the coronavirus lockdown and tragedies.

On the other hand, social media also provides a breeding bed for fake news. It became challenging. There was no easy way to identify a true story although this time we just blindly forwarded the SOS messages to increase the exposure. Then, it received the strictest censorship after the first week of coronavirus breakout. But, removing SOS messages and other ‘negative’ contents can also cause distrust and scepticism. We didn’t know whether all potential patients received medical care or not. Still, suggesting that emergency responder should spare more efforts on collect, interpret and analyze the data from social media. In particular, AI-driven analysis should be deployed to increase the efficiency and accuracy, not only to filter out the people who need help, but also to analyze the social pressure in crisis. A moderate anxiety might be good in a sense, but when social pressure reaches a critical value, psychological support and other measures should be provided. Being isolated and persistently anxious can take more lives than coronavirus.