Raid that killed Osama bin Laden first reported on Twitter, accidentally (UPDATES)
A Twitter user unknowingly tweeted the actual U.S. Navy SEAL raid on Osama's compound north of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, inadvertently breaking news of Osama bin Laden's death.
Sohaib Athar, an IT consultant and blogger in Abbottabad, the city where bin Laden was found and reportedly killed, tweeted at 4 p.m. ET Sunday (after midnight in Pakistan): "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."
He was apparently annoyed at the noise: "Go away helicopter – before I take out my giant swatter :-/," he wrote under the handle @ReallyVirtual.
Then he worried that terrorism might be involved. "A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S"
And he gave details of military cordoning off areas of the city.
Athar later reported thousands of email, Twitter and media responses, and — apparently wearied by his newfound stardom — tweeted, "Bin Laden is dead. I didn't kill him. Please let me sleep now."
Meanwhile, social media — already buzzing before Osama bin Laden's death was announced — has since exploded, beginning with the more-than 4,000 tweets per second recorded during President Barack Obama's late-night announcement.
That volume is on par with the 4,064 tweets-per-second peak of this year's Super Bowl, but far short of the 6,939 tweets per second record set when Japan brought in the 2011 new year, according to CNN.
In the nearly two hours between the White House's announcement of President Obama's late-night address to the nation and his actual speech, speculation on Twitter was rife — and much of it on target.
Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, reportedly tweeted at 10:25 Eastern time: "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn." According to the LA Times, he followed immediately with: "Don't know if its true, but let's pray it is."
Meanwhile, Abbottabad was among the top-10 Osama-related terms trending on Twitter on Monday morning, along with #osama, #obl, Navy Seals, God Bless America and Saddam Hussein.
Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton wrote that "Hollywood is dominating the Twitterverse with their reactions," with everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Charlie Sheen sharing their thoughts.
This from Charlie Sheen: "Dead or Alive. WE PREFER DEAD! Well done SEAL team! AMERICA: #WINNING that's how we roll…. c."
And within about two hours of reports first surfacing that Osama Bin Laden had been killed, a Facebook page titled Osama Bin Laden is DEAD has already accumulated more than 150,000 “likes.” According to Mashable, the page appears to be adding thousands of likes by the minute, with users sharing links to stories about the news.
Osama bin Laden's death resulted in a peak of more than 4.1 million page views per second on the news websites supported and tracked by content delivery network Akamai, CNN reports. Akamai delivers about 20 percet of Internet content, and it supports popular news sites like nytimes.com, reuters.com, bbc.com and usatoday.com.
"Osama bin Laden dead" was the top-trending term on Google Trends.
Foursquare users meanwhile, in a ceremonial gesture, started checking in to a world in which the Al Qaeda founder no longer exists, according to Mashable.
And Google Maps users reportedly correctly pinpointed a large compound listed on Google Maps in the city of Abbottabad picked as Osama bin Laden's compound, according to TechCrunch.
— Freya Petersen