Hobbled Twitter reports air crash

Thursday's spam attacks on Twitter, Facebook and Google have continued, with Twitter, in particular still struggling. 

On Thursday this was comical, and perhaps indicative of users' new attachment to the service. But the way the problem is lingering is becoming a concern. Search giant Google, also targeted in the attacks, is effectively swatting away the latest waves of spam, but Twitter is limping along at diminished capacity. And Facebook is affected, too.

Twitter being down is not a hardship for most users. While many of the messages on Twitter are either noise or frivolous, the social network has emerged as an effective emergency alert system. That was proven again today.

For the second time, Twitter users today were the first to report a significant air crash in New York. Today's mid-air collision of a small plane and helicopter was witnessed by several Twitter users who sent out news of the crash and photos. A photo sent out on Twitter was the first report of the US Airways airliner crashing into the Hudson River in January. The photo sent out on Twitter of that crash is above. 

Due to the spam attacks, today many users couldn't access Twitter or upload photos. It's lucky the crash witnesses in New York could.

Charlotteans have been affected by the social media outtage. Paige Layne was out of town on business Thursday when her cell phone died. She turned to Twitter to contact home, but was shut out due to the spam attacks. Then she tried Facebook, which was also down. "I actually got online at the airport around 7 p.m. and used my Facebook status update to send a message home to the family. It was such a relief to do that," she said. 

The Fort Mill Times newspaper's phone system also went down Thursday. That's a serious problem for a newsroom. Twitter was the staff's first option for letting the community know what was going on. But Twitter was also down. 

Many of us have come to rely on Twitter in our daily lives. So having it shut down in an act of political censorship affects our rights, too. The blogger in Georgia who was the target of this cyber attack was trying to inform the world about Russian military mobilization. Taking away his right to social media was oppression. We just feel a small ripple of that.

A political dissident's right to protest military mobilization, airplane crash witnesses, a mom away from home trying to contact her family, a newsroom without a phone system. Those aren't frivolous communication needs.