Everything is ok now, but the digital apocalypse was almost upon us yesterday, as both Twitter and Facebook went down (apparently due to an attack aimed at a Georgian political blogger by Russian hackers). Somehow, humanity survived.
This was apparently big news, despite the fact that Twitter, GMail, and other groups have occasional service hiccups. But some additional factors may have given this story more legs than usual. First, with unemployment staying high, there were more people without day jobs affected deeply by a lack of an online life. Second – and much more importantly – is that more and more journalists are using Twitter to follow politicians. If something happens to a journalist, it’s much more likely to hit the news.
Jim Eltringham 