Social media sites Twitter, Facebook helping with Amber Alerts

BOSTON (FOX25, myfoxboston) - The second that an Amber Alert for 1-year-old Jaylin Boudria was sent out on Thursday, it hit the radio, TV, highway signs, and sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Thousands of social media users jumped into action and spread the word.

”I say Twitter actually stands for Time Wasted In Tracking Tiny Egotistical Rants, because for most people that's how they use Twitter,” said Patrick O’Malley, a social media expert known as 617 Patrick .

But he said today shows how Twitter can be used for good.

“It's a great feel-good story of the world. A village being able to find one of their children, and this is just the technology today that allows you to do it,” he said.

For example, FOX25’s Sara Underwood posted a tweet at 4 p.m. Thursday, saying: “ AMBER ALERT. Beautiful 1yr old girl. Please look at photo's and retweet: http://bit.ly/dr43oA via @addthis #FOX25 ”

She linked the tweet to myfoxboston.com , where pictures were posted of the baby and the suspect, Alyssa Johnson.

Within an instant, hundreds of followers, and even actress Alyssa Milano retweeted the information.

617 Patrick took it a step further.

“I actually tweeted Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O’Neal – the people with a million Twitter followers in hopes that one of them might see it, might pass it on, and now you’ve got millions conceivably looking for this girl,” he said.

After five hours of searching, Boudria was found safe in Connecticut.

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