People in Haiti started tweeting immediately following the massive earthquake there in January, 2010. This was novel, according to a BBC report, which said, "New and emerging media played a key role in breaking news to the outside world of the Haiti earthquake." It added that major media organizations didn't break the story, but the most up-to date information came, "from ordinary people on the spot."
While Twitter and SMS weren't, at this point, exactly "new and emerging," the Haiti earthquake did introduce a way of using social media for philanthropy. Namely, the Red Cross accepted donations via text message, according to a report by the Knight Foundation, which also concluded that social media still had a ways to go in terms of problem-solving. Haitians in need of help could tweet their locations, but were still difficult to pinpoint and access.
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