On the evening of Valentine’s day, 2019, Netflix’s Los Angeles office reported threats of an active shooter
First twitter post about early reports of a shooter at Netflix headquarters at 4:36pm PT, just 1 minute after the police reported to a news agency about the threat.
First report of evacuating the Netflix office came from Twitter at 4:44pm PT
Multiple nearby Twitter accounts disseminate news of the reduction in threat status at 5:09pm PT
LAPD informed news channels that the lockdown had been lifted, as a suspect had been arrested and no shooter was ever on the Netflix premises – 5:35pm PT
Social listening tools can help aggregate useful posts in these scenarios, that helps in quickly searching content to identify critical intelligence, quickly.
As this event summary demonstrates, news in a crisis is often socially shared before it is officially announced, meaning companies in surrounding areas can have more information, sooner, to ensure the safety of their staff and executives.