#BrusselsLockdown: The Internet’s Perfect Response to Terrorism

Posted on by Steven Geer

The situation in Europe over the past two weeks has been terrifying. It started with the tragic, ISIL-led terrorist attack leaving 130 victims dead across Paris. Then, as new intelligence information came in, anti-terrorism raids were carried out – resulting in shootouts and one woman in a suicide vest blowing herself up. There is still one individual responsible for taking part in the attack on the run – Salah Abdeslam. New threats soon emerged via intelligence and social media; this time Brussels was the epicenter.

Government officials raised the threat-level to its highest possible and the city went on lockdown as a manhunt ensued.

However,  as we’ve seen before – with all the immediacy and accuracy our mobile devices now provide us, comes a certain amount of security vulnerability. Residents of the area were soon urged by government officials and public figures to refrain from posting any information about the operation underway in Belgium.

Soon after, magic happened. The citizens of Belgium (and Twitter) had seen and heard enough. Time to fight terrorism with, well, what I would also consider terrorism..

..cats.

#BrusselsLockdown had blossomed from a scary hashtag revealing locations and info that could otherwise thwart an imminent terrorist attack, to a harmless collection of cute cats in funny costumes making funny faces. As Daniel Roberts puts it:

In good spirit, this Belgian man seems optimistic about testing the limits of cat pics. He’s seen enough – haven’t we all?

They could’ve chosen anything else – puppies, laughing babies, sneezing elephants. I think this guy had the right idea:

It’s important to recognize the reality of these events, however. Today was a lesson for all of social media and its users to learn from. Perhaps our best response to terrorism isn’t a logical response at all. It can be as simple as a little comic relief in a time of extreme tension and danger.

 

2 thoughts on “#BrusselsLockdown: The Internet’s Perfect Response to Terrorism”

  1. I really enjoyed your commentary on the #BrusselsLockdown hashtag, as I think you included all of the important components of this conversation on Twitter. Firstly, I think it was great how you composed this post in a listicle type format. I think it allowed the tweets and your overall message to flow together seamlessly. Additionally, I think it was important that you included tweets regarding the security concerns surrounding the threats that emerged. Of course, in almost all emergency situations, people will take to social media to release information and urge others to stay safe. The cat tweets added some comic relief to a terrifying situation, and your last line summed it up perfectly: “Perhaps our best response to terrorism isn’t a logical response at all. It can be as simple as a little comic relief in a time of extreme tension and danger.” The tweets you chose to include definitely prove this to be true.

  2. Great post Steve. Going on the internet often simultaneously gives me hope and terrifies me at the same time. Before reading your post I’d learned about this hashtag and what people started posting on it after police requested they refrain from using Twitter to talk about happenings and locations of their anti-terror operations. I thought it was obnoxious for people to create social noise on the hashtag rather than talking about the serious issues at hand. They didn’t need to talk about the locations of police working to fight terror, they could’ve simply refrained from posting anything. After reading your post I’ve gained a new perspective on the topic. It seems that rather than just posting for sake of a funny internet meme people were posting cat pics to confuse the terrorists that might be monitoring said hashtag. Though it’d hard to measure whether this was a successful endeavor or not it’s still interesting to think about.

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