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Torrent of Online Details in Aftermath Of Blasts Underscores Value of Internet
Ashlee Betteridge | July 21, 2009

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Moments after bombs ripped through the Ritz-Carlton and Marriott hotels on Friday, Indonesians turned to the Internet to trade information and express their outrage.

Microblogging site Twitter was one of the first places where breaking news of the bombings was reported, as people on the scene sent updates from their mobile phones. Indonesian Web user Fajar Nugraha found online networking was the best way to get news about the blasts.

“This tragedy is really a big blow, again, for our country,” he said. “But this time the Internet has played such an important role, more than in 2003 when there was no Facebook or Twitter, to inform the Indonesian people and to tell the rest of the world about what’s really happening here and how Indonesians are reacting.”

News sites also received a huge spike in traffic over the weekend. Kompas.com jumped more than 300 places in global rankings of the most visited websites between Friday morning and Monday afternoon, according to Web tracker Alexa.com, while Detik.com rose by more than 200 spots. On Friday, “Ritz-Carlton” was the 57th most used search term worldwide on Google.

More than 2,200 blog postings about Jakarta were made on Friday, more than triple the usual number, according to blog statistics site Technorati.

Since 2003, the last time a terrorist bombing hit Jakarta, the use of the Internet and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Friendster and YouTube has grown exponentially. Facebook alone now boasts 2.8 million users in its Indonesia network and is the most popular site in the country, according to Alexa.com.

Social networks also acted as a unifying force for Indonesian nationalism in the face of the attack. On Twitter, users added a red-and-white overlay to their profile pictures to symbolize the Indonesian flag.

For Jakartan Waraney Rawung, changing his photo was an expression of defiance.

“It means we’re not afraid, it means we’re not going down, no matter what [the terrorists] throw at us,” Waraney said. “It’s not the kind of message you could send six years ago.”

Twitter users also marked their messages with the tag “indonesia unite,” which rose to become the most popular tag on the site globally on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

Trend monitoring site Twist said that at its peak, the tag accounted for 1.13 percent of worldwide Twitter traffic on Saturday evening.

An “IndonesiaUnite!” Facebook fan page and Web site followed. The Facebook page attracted more than 11,800 fans by Monday afternoon and T-shirts are now available for sale.

On YouTube, local rap musician and social-network user Pandji Pragiwaksono released a music video Friday called “Kami Tidak Takut” (“We Are Not Afraid”), which was widely circulated around the Internet.

Some bloggers and Twitter users also proposed on Monday to use the power of social networking as a way to point out lax security measures at shopping malls and hotels in the city, and push for improvements.