Kara Alongi, missing N.J. teen, turns routine runaway case into national story

Published: Tuesday, October 02, 2012, 6:40 AM
Updated: Tuesday, October 02, 2012, 6:41 AM
By Ryan Hutchins and Dan Goldberg/The Star-Ledger
CLARK — In the span of only a few hours, the panic over what happened or didn’t happen to the 16-year-old girl from Clark spread from a handful of concerned friends on Twitter to a tidal wave of panic that touched hundreds of thousands.

The popular social media site that acts as a message board with posts limited to 140 characters exploded Sunday night and the activity continued Monday following Kara Alongi’s cry for help.

Driven by the sheer power of the Twitterverse, its capacity to spread pranks quickly and rumors prolifically without regard for truth or consequence, Alongi’s message ran up some stunning numbers: The hashtag — a way to group subjects on Twitter — "helpfindkara" was re-tweeted more than 34,000 times. Her tweet — "There is someone in my hour ecall 911" was shared more than 32,000 times.

No one was as stunned as the Clark Police Department, which had to confront an avante-garde dilemma, the likes of which they never had to contend with before — thousands of calls, an avalanche of tweets around the world.

Read more: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/10/kara_alongi_missing_nj_teen.html


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