Two days ago, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which bans citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for the next 90 days and suspends admission of all refugees for 120 days.
The ban sparked outrage all over the world, effectively turning American airports upside down with many green card holders being detained and other citizens gathering in protest.
I first heard about the ban not on television, not through friends or news outlets, but via the hashtag MuslimBan on Twitter, which began trending early yesterday, flooded with people speaking out and sharing their stories.
Both CNN and the Huffington Post reached out through the platform yesterday, looking for people who have been affected by the ban to talk to, and CNN has already started sharing some of their findings today.
While fact-checking the authenticity of every single report on Twitter surely proves difficult, and it is dangerous to take tweets from a stranger at face value, the sheer magnitude of heartbreaking stories rolling in and celebrity attention was certainly enough incentive for onlookers like myself to do more research.
Without Twitter, I wouldn't have found out about the ban as early as I did; that's how powerful of a role social media can play in online journalism. Sure, it has it's problems, but if enough voices accumulate about a certain cause, people will take notice.
~ Stay Salty ~
