Terrorist Incident in Westminster

On social media:

Surprised there was only one attacker.

I wonder how he felt carrying a knife when faced by a rifle? Trying to kill innocent pedestrians with a car. Big man.

Sadly the police officer stabbed has died.

Ugh. FB is full of the “safe from attack” notices. I refuse to use it. It only legitimizes fear and plays into the hands of the perpetrators, if they are indeed a group.

Though if anyone is concerned I’m stuck in the office working. Trafalgar Square is so quiet right now. Hardly any traffic.

I have friends that work in and around Westminster and I was pleased to see they are safe thanks to this neat bit of technology that saves everyone having to ask everyone if they’re safe.

I just assume people are safe until I hear otherwise. It’s not like I can do anything about it if they’re not. I’m with @starman on this one. It feels a bit like people are muscling in on the news: oh this is awful, but I’m okay, everybody!

The appearance of this has sent friends and particularly mom into a blind panic convinced an aircraft has just exploded in Central London. Perhaps this would work better if Facebook could also provide meaningful updates as to the scope.

I’m not a big fan of flags on profile pics either though am waiting to see the I’m With UK memes pop up soon.

That’s something we can agree on. Recent decades of terrorism need a decisive response from World leaders. Not a hashtag on Twitter.

Should I change my profile on FB now?

Sadly the attacker has died. And I say sadly for the info he could have given if he had have survived.

I think that only works when you’re from another country looking in with pity and thankful this didn’t happen at home.

Cue thread split to Politicos in three, two,…

No, FB mates already changed theirs.

Dont you dare

The one FB profile change which tugs at my heart strings. As posted by friends in the police and related services.

image.jpg512×512 7.96 KB

I may change my profile to that. It seems very fitting.

Very disturbing events. I work in parliament and was confined to the office for a few hours, though we were allowed to go home at about 6.30 (I understand others were kept on the estate till later). Sad for all the victims and for the family of the police officer. I have always found the police guarding parliament to be polite and affable and while parliament is very secure overall they are in an unavoidably vulnerable position as the outer ring of security.

I work off Millbank, and we were also detained yesterday. Worse, I have been through security clearance with the guy who died a number of times, he was a very nice man. Find the analysis on this thread a bit weird and disrespectful to be honest. Everyone who works in that part of the city has expected an attack for some time. We are grateful it wasn’t worse. The dismissive tone of the above comments feels pretty out of kilter to those of use working in the centre, to be honest.

I completely understand that the experience is different for people caught up in the events. Is it the comments about Facebook Safe statuses that you found dismissive? They were in no way intended (on my part) in that way. My issue is that people who are nowhere near the event start marking themselves as safe, people whose friends and family could easily contact them to find out, and I feel that deflects attention from people who really were in danger. It feels like people are riding on the coat tails of the event for a quick bit of attention.

And attention is exactly what terrorists want.

I have friends and family all round the world, few will know that I work round the corner from Westminster Bridge - I could work anywhere in London. Rather than personally contacting all their family and friends in London, they want a quick way to see that people are okay. I had two cousins, in New York and New Zealand, who wanted to make sure all their family and friends in London are okay.

I have friends in Istanbul and Paris and when there is an attack on a nightclub in the cities I want to know they are okay. When there is an earthquake in Auckland, I want to know that my family are okay. But I don’t want to be hassling people for updates after every bombing or earthquake. Marking yourself as ‘safe’ on Facebook is a simple way to keep people informed without spreading hysteria.

After marking myself as safe I actually removed it from my timeline, so that only people viewing the safety alert would be able to check up on me. I don’t need to broadcast my safety, but I don’t want people to worry about me. (This doesn’t necessarily make sense based on what I’m about to say, but I admit to a lack of consistency and reflection in such circumstances)

Personally I would encourage people to mark themselves as safe as it actually normalises the process. I want to know about the safety of people who I fear could be in danger in future incidents on the other side of the world as quickly as possible. When an incident in your city is newsworthy on the other side of the world, it is worth marking yourself as safe.

I hope we don’t have another similar incident, but if it happens I would urge people to mark themselves as safe, to encourage others around the world to do the same. Rather than promoting fear I believe that such a move makes people feel safer about those people they care about most.

And it is a big YOU MISSED ME message to those who would prefer to see me dead

Well said, sir. Especially your last line!!!

If you find it effective, that’s fine. I think normalising it is the exact opposite of what is needed. I think it’s much healthier to operate on the basis of assuming people are safe until I hear otherwise.

I also have friends and family all over the world. I didn’t assume any of them was in a state of anxiety about my safety on Wednesday. If they were, I think they would have have messaged me directly.

EDIT TO SAY: Thinking about this, I would use the facility to mark myself safe if the incident occurred in a very specific place (say an airport) where friends and family already knew I was likely to be (say I had widely advertised I was travelling that day). I think that is the circumstances in which this is useful. Otherwise we are just flooding the internet with shouts of ‘I’m safe!’ - which normalises the idea that we potentially weren’t.

However, I’d say this is not a conversation for this thread. I’d suggest closing it now as the incident is over.

I agree. Perhaps a new discussion on this Facebook tool and how dad was convinced London had been hit by a dirty bomb because of it.

Feel free to start a new thread elsewhere. I’ll close this later this morning if no one objects.

If people are really worried about you they will call you. I Whatsapped my dad in Cape Town and said I was disappointed that he hadn’t tried to see if I was OK (with an added sarcastic wink for good measure) and that I hadn’t posted up on Facebook.

He posted an equally sarcastic response in that there was life before Facebook and if he was really concerned he would have called me.

I had FB friends saying they were safe, they live in Middlesbrough.

As an aside, I was interested to see that not one single FB friend changed their profile to the Union Jack. Not a single one. Yet after all the European attacks there was a huge amount of flags present. I wonder why we feel sympathy for other countries but not our own?

I did see a few of my European friends post some images of the Brandenburg Gate all lit up and similar but, like you, not one UK resident posted a flag - one did the line blue line thing and that was it.
It is odd but part of the make up of our culture I guess.

Andrew Neil sums it up well for me

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2017/03/24/idea-dealing-journalists-isis-taunt/

That is the most rousing speech I’ve ever heard from a BBC presenter. Sterling spirit, thanks for sharing.