Yokohama Accidentally Tweets That NK Missile Is Inbound

ForgedArtificer writes "Earlier today, the Crisis Management Office Affairs Bureau for the city of Yokohama, Japan had some startling news for its followers; to wit, a North Korean missile was on its way to Japan. The tweet stayed up for about 20 minutes before being removed and replaced with an apology. The city reports that a pre-written tweet was released due to a malfunction in the 'mechanism' that would have released the tweet at the appropriate time."

Comments

Apparently

[netwarerip]

They wanted to be first to tweet the news.
Must be a Slashdot user.

Re:Apparently

[pixelpusher220]

Note to self: Maybe that RaspberryPi Tweet monitoring Nuke launcher was a bad idea...

Re:Apparently

[serviscope_minor]

Maybe.

Though being twitter, I'd expect it to be something more like:

missile coming were all going to die lol

Re:Apparently

[wonkey_monkey]

#ohshit

joshua what are you doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

joshua what are you doing?

Pre-written?

[ZorinLynx]

This sounds like something serious enough that a pre-written tweet is not the best idea. If a missile were inbound for my area, I'd want a real person to write the tweet, with actual pertinent details, rather than "releasing" a prewritten, generic tweet.

Something that can cause panic like this should not be automated.

Re:Pre-written?

[interkin3tic]

Sure, but that wouldn't be very Japanese. On the windows of some trains on the Tokyo subway, there were big warnings that the window could not open. The windows in question were clearly stationary, if you broke your fingers trying to pry them open, that was on you. This is the same country that practices tiger escape drills in their zoos using costumes.

Re:Pre-written?

[medv4380]

It's automated because they're using the same system that they use for earthquakes notifications. They're just lucky it only posted to twitter, and not a full Text Bombing Emergency Alert. They have a far better EBS then the US, but it still has bugs. Most of the US EBS are just pre-recorded messages with general instructions that later lead to your more personalized message, and instructions.

Re:Pre-written?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends who operates that "mechanism". If it's a government employee, a few hours to days after the impact. If it's a 14 year old girl with an iphone, about 42ms after the missle was launched...

Re:Pre-written?

[Bohnanza]

Sounds like something serious enough to use an air-raid siren instead of a tweet.

Re:Pre-written?

[Anonymous Coward]

She'd also include an instagram picture of the missile with some pretty effects to boot.

Wow, talk about being eager for "First Post"

[kannibal_klown]

Man, I thought the first-post messages on Slashdot were bad.

At least the incorrect messages on slashdot won't incite World War III

Twitter fails as warning system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good test. No widespread panic. Nobody changing their behaviour. No flood of retweets. Thanks to this production test we learned that twitter is not a good warning system.

My fellow Americans

[Alranor]

I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.

Retaliation tweet

[sl4shd0rk]

lol whops... sry Kim my bad. -Obama

Re:Oblig:

[ArcadeMan]

Nuclear launch cancelled. Not enough minerals.