A plea on Twitter has brought some relief after a 7.2 magnitude earthquake left thousands homeless in Turkey.
The Guardian reports that about five hours after the earthquake struck Van province on Sunday, Turkey's Kanal 7 TV journalist, Erhan Celik, sent out a call for help on Twitter. Another journalist, Ahmet Tezcan, initially thought up the idea. In Celik's tweet, he urged those willing to offer accommodation to send him an e-mail. Celik used the hashtag #^EvimEvindirVan (or my home is your home, Van).
Roughly seven hours later, he tweeted that he had received 17 000 e-mails, which he said he would forward to the Istanbul governorate. Istanbul authorities are now taking accommodation offers directly. According to the report, Celik's efforts also persuaded mobile phone companies Turkcell, Avea and Vodafone to give affected people free texts and airtime.
Gil Sperling, CTO at Popimedia, and Wesley Lynch, founder and CEO of Realmdigital, argue that Twitter inspires people to action because it makes them feel part of a community, and it facilitates the spread of information in real-time.
Both Sperling and Lynch say Twitter users are not necessarily all philanthropic. However, they argue that seeing other people do good often inspires others to do the same.
According to Lynch, celebrity Rihanna tweeted: “Turkey, we're praying for all of you #Pray4Turkey”, and thousands of users retweeted her tweet. He says while these followers might not be inclined to help, “seeing one of their idols passionate about the topic makes them want to help as well”.
Sperling suggests that seeing others' support makes people want to be part of the crowd. “Support for a cause can become viral,” he concludes.
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