Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Social Media
  3. News

#SharkAttack: Australia uses Twitter to send shark warnings

By
sharkattack australia uses twitter send shark warnings
Refresh your Twitter feed. This could be there. Image used with permission by copyright holder

Viewers of Jaws knew the nefarious shark was near whenever the soundtrack blared the classic theme’s menacing brass notes. Real-life shark attack victims aren’t so lucky. But Surf Life Saving Western Australia, an organization for waterfront safety, is using Twitter to provide warnings to Australian beach-goers around Perth, tweeting alerts about nearby sharks.

Surf Life Saving have their Twitter feed hooked up to transmitters attached to over 320 sharks in the area. Whenever a shark comes within around a kilometer of the beach, Surf Life Saving spreads the word on Twitter. The team also posts alerts when other people call in shark sightings, and keep people up to date about weather conditions at the beach. 

This is a good example of an organization developing a smart alert system independently of Twitter, but through Twitter. Twitter has been bulking up its native alert system, which is a smart move, but it’s good to see organizations coming up with their own solutions. 

Here are a few alerts just from this past week: 

Related

Sometimes they’re not so serious, instead offering glimpses of beauty:

Now if only Barraccos, the pizza place by my parents’ house, would take a cue from Surf Live Saving and set up a Twitter alert system to tell people they ran out of deep dish on Christmas Eve. 

[Via Sky | Image credit: Surf Live Saving/Twitter] 

Editors’ Recommendations

Topics
Kate Knibbs
Kate Knibbs
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kate Knibbs is a writer from Chicago. She is very happy that her borderline-unhealthy Internet habits are rewarded with a…
Twitter Circle will soon let you send semiprivate tweets
A Twitter icon on a blue background on a smartphone's screen, all on a white background.

Robert de Niro introduced Ben Stiller and all of us to a concept called the Circle of Trust in the 2000 film Meet the Parents. Now, over 20 years later, Twitter is taking that lesson to heart and spinning it into a new feature it's testing called Twitter Circle.

The Twitter Safety team on Tuesday introduced the feature, which is designed to allow users to share their tweets with up to 150 people instead of sharing them with a public audience. Some people are able to use Twitter Circle already, but it's currently unknown when it will be rolled out to everybody. The testing phase is not exclusive to either iOS or Android, nor is it exclusive to Twitter Blue subscribers.

Read more
Twitter is testing an ‘undo send’ feature for paid users
A lot of white Twitter logos against a blue background.

We've all hurriedly typed up and sent out a tweet, only to realize as soon as it's posted that it has a typo. And we've all had the urge to tweet something snarky or ill-advised, only to think better of it at the last minute. Now, Twitter is experimenting with a new feature to save users from these dilemmas -- but it will only be available for paid users.

Twitter is testing out an "undo send" function that would allow users to put a stop to their tweets before they are sent. Details are scarce, but it seems that it would work by introducing a small delay between a user hitting post and their tweet actually appearing on their timeline. In this window, they could use the undo send function if they want to edit their tweet or if they decide against posting it.

Read more
Australia says it found no evidence to suggest a TikTok ban is necessary
tiktok logos on microsoft logo

Australia has completed its security probe into TikTok and found no evidence of data misuse to warrant a ban. The country’s security agencies concluded that at this stage, the short-form video platform doesn't pose any national security concerns, according to Reuters.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the country will “keep watching” the China-based app but “there’s no evidence to suggest today that that is a step that is necessary.”

Read more