Week 12: Crowd sourcing in times of crisis
Have you ever experienced a natural disaster or emergency situation and faced serious damage to your communication systems? Of course, I experienced it on 2011 March 11, the day of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.
Social media can dramatically change how people communicate during emergencies and disasters and can be utilized in innovative ways. Social media is deeply rooted in our daily lives, serving as an essential tool for meeting various needs and spreading vast amounts of information daily (Wang et al., 2025). One of these important concepts is crowdsourcing.
Crowdsourcing is a system that invites a large number of people online to participate in a task and do the work for you (Schimak et al., 2015). Participants are free to join, but the parties requesting work are usually clearly defined entities such as companies or organizations. Therefore, crowdsourcing helps gather information from the general public at every stage of a crisis and understand what is happening. Due to disasters, the roles of information technology, communication systems, and digital tools are increasingly recognized (Nielsen et al., 2024).
Case Study: the Great East Japan Earthquake & Tsunami 2011
On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku region was struck by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, a major tsunami, and a nuclear disaster, resulting in 19,729 deaths (Reconstruction Agency, 2023) and over 300,000 people affected (Teraguchi et al., 2012). In disasters of this scale, government information and media coverage alone were insufficient, and access to important information was cut off in many regions.
Amidst this, Google and Picasa (Google Photos) made a surprising move. Google immediately launched Person Finder, integrating it with Picasa to allow volunteers to upload photos of handwritten evacuee lists brought back from shelters (Teraguchi et al., 2012). This allowed many people to digitize their name data and register it in databases, enabling families to find missing relatives. Within weeks of the tsunami, this initiative saw about 5,000 anonymous volunteers from around the world transcribe over 10,000 photos, adding more than 140,000 pieces of information to the main registry (Tabuchi, 2011). Reports on the locations of evacuation shelters, water supply points, and areas where gas supply had been cut off were collected via Twitter and email, helping convey on-the-ground voices that government agencies and major media outlets could not fully capture. Such citizen-provided information greatly contributed to the rapid planning of rescue and relief efforts.
Moreover, during this earthquake, when conventional communication systems stopped functioning, Twitter and Facebook became important alternative means. The platforms were used to share real-time information from disaster areas, confirm the safety of family and friends, request assistance and supplies, coordinate volunteer and relief activities, and disseminate information when official channels were unavailable (Hashimoto & Ohama, 2014). Some local governments effectively used social media to provide emergency information. For example, when administrative systems stopped functioning, Iwate Prefecture used personal mobile phones to disseminate information via Twitter and Facebook (Hashimoto & Ohama, 2014). Tsukuba City also used Twitter to quickly disseminate disaster information and receive citizen reports (Hashimoto & Ohama, 2014). Social media played a role in connecting victims and supporters, enabling volunteers to organize relief activities more efficiently.
Therefore, the earthquake and tsunami are powerful examples of how crowdsourcing can support disaster response, especially after experiencing how quickly official communication systems can break down during emergencies. I felt that social media and tools like Google’s Person Finder were extremely helpful in sharing urgent information and reconnecting people. However, I am also concerned that relying too much on crowdsourced data can be risky, as information is not always verified and can spread confusion during critical moments. This makes me question whether disaster management systems might become overly dependent on publicly generated information rather than strengthening official communication infrastructure.
To sum up, the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami demonstrate how crowdsourcing and social media can become critical tools in disaster response when traditional communication systems fail. The rapid spread of user-generated information through platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google’s Person Finder showed how collective intelligence can support emergency rescue, locate missing people, and coordinate relief efforts more efficiently than official channels alone. However, this case also raises important concerns about information reliability, misinformation, and unequal access to digital technologies during crises. This raises a critical question: while crowdsourcing can significantly improve disaster response, how can authorities ensure that information collected from the public is accurate, trustworthy, and effectively integrated into official decision-making systems?
Hashimoto, Y., & Ohama, A. (2014). The role of social media in emergency response: The case of the Great East Japan Earthquake. NIDS journal of defense and security, 15, 99-126.
Nielsen, A. B., Landwehr, D., Nicolaï, J., Patil, T., & Raju, E. (2024). Social media and crowdsourcing in disaster risk management: Trends, gaps, and insights from the current state of research. Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy. https://doi.org/10.1002/rhc3.12297
Reconstruction Agency. (2023). Great East Japan Earthquake. https://www.reconstruction.go.jp/english/topics/GEJE/
Schimak, G., Havlik, D., & Pielorz, J. (2015). Crowdsourcing in Crisis and Disaster Management – Challenges and Considerations. In R. Denzer, R. M. Argent, G. Schimak, & J. Hřebíček (Eds.), Environmental Software Systems. Infrastructures, Services and Applications: AICT-448 (pp. 56–70). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15994-2_5
Tabuchi, H. (2011, July 11). Quick Action Helps Google Win Friends in Japan. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/technology/quick-action-helps-google-win-friends-in-japan.html
Teraguchi, M., Saito, S., Lau, T., Ohno, M., Cerruti, J. A., & Takagi, H. (2012). Crowdsourcing in crisis informatics for disaster relief. International Reports on Socio-Informatics (IRSI), 9(2), 60-66.
Wang, J., Zhai, Y., & Shahzad, F. (2025). Mapping the terrain of social media misinformation: A scientometric exploration of global research. Acta Psychologica, 252, 104691. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2025.104691
