I did a little experiment and left #swineflu up on twitter search last night. This morning, there were over 1400 messages there with (a) panic (b) anxiety and (c) the same joke repeated over and over. By the way, let's first all thank the dolt who invented "RT" or the twut that tells you about the twot that someone else left two minutes ago. Now, let's consider what Twitter brings to the problem:

• Medical emergencies are a Web 1.0 moment. I don't need to comment. I need to listen. We need signs posted on public building front doors as well as web pages. We need to do as we are told. We need to accept authority.
• If you really want to know what you need to know, use Google. Consider this from the journal Foreign Policy from the CIA: "Twitter seems to have introduced too much noise into the process: as opposed to search requests which are generally motivated only by a desire to learn more about a given subject, too many Twitter conversations about swine flu seem to be motivated by desires to fit in, do what one's friends do (i.e. tweet about it) or simply gain more popularity." I don't get my medical information from the giggling throng normally - why do it in a crisis?
• Sometimes size does matter. 140 characters. is simply too small a data unit to convey meaningful information that doesn't need to be sent simply once. Sure you can write "wash your hands" or "use alcohol sterilizer" but now that I have written that what else need I write?

We have to be honest. Twitter is nothing but far reaching rubber necking. It's the guy who stops by the side of the road to watch a house fire but doesn't get off his duff to see if there is anything he can do. Like libertarians¹, Twitter is not much use in a time of crisis. But there have been 194 additional twits since I started writing this post a few minutes ago. No doubt Stephen Fry has some keen medical observations to share.

¹...and apparently faux secessionists, too..