VOST groups are often NGOs and sometimes non formalized groups made up of volunteers. Those volunteers are carefully selected, trained and often have a disaster management or digital professional background. Volunteering implies a long term commitment. Typically volunteers are notified and activated during a crisis and monitor social media accounts from their homes or from a crisis center while coordinating with other volunteers. Regional proximity is considered when activating volunteers often already separated in regional groups. Guidelines and shared digital ressources provide orientation during the crises. Depending on the country senior volunteers supervise a group of volunteers.
VOST groups have a range of actions based on five axes:
The purpose of the use of social media in emergency situations is to facilitate dialogue between crisis managers and emergency services on the one hand, and citizens on the other. This can allow the benefit from feedback directly from the field. Daily, in “active standby” mode, volunteers exchange views in specific rooms using WhatsApp or online coordination tools. Volunteers are invited to post sensitive information spotted on the web that may be of interest to other volunteers or structures present such as the fire brigade or crisis centers of relevant governement agencies. On Twitter, volunteers (and supporters among citizens) use for instance specific hashtags to report any significant or urgent tweet. Regular newsfeeds are also posted (meteorological alerts, summaries of ongoing events).
The solution targets social media and is, therefore, dependent on digital literacy skills both from volunteers and from populations that seek, share or respond to information provided online. Volunteers also need the necessary skills to find official and trustworthy sources for information and provide it in a comprehensive way.
Depending on the trust people have in authorities VOST can be closely linked to authorities or operate as independent volunteers. The trust authorities and emergency organizations have in VOST groups is pivotal for collaborating during crises.
VOST need to be adapted to the digital literacy and communication skills of the general population. Messaging has to be clear and simple. VOST mostly rely on information from official channels and need to convince authorities of the importance of information sharing parallel to official disaster communication channels.
VOST depend on preexisting information on social media and directly from authorities and emergency organizations. For the first trust from social media users and being recognized as independent actor is necessary for being able to relate and amplify official informations and deconstruct misinformation. For the latter trust relationhips with official crisis managers is necessary to obtain pivotal information.
The French virtual operations support team VISOV is routinely activated during meteorological emergencies. Most of them are on regional or local level. Even though they can affect multiple regions or localities at once, they are still rather managed in cooperation with regional governments than on a national level. This provides visibility to social media users searching for trustworthy information. The terrorist attacks on November 13 in Paris. This case was the first activation during a security incident of the French virtual operations support team VISOV. Even though the incident concerned only the French capital, the uncertainty during the crisis situation and its place and scope made it a major disaster. VISOV proofed effective in providing trustworthy information when during the crisis rumours and incorrect information was rampant. VISOV was active during three days. A specific team related to police information (Médias Sociaux Forces de l’Ordre) was used. No formal evaluation of VOST activities has been undertaken so far.
VOST services only are effective as long as they are visible to social media users. They require therefore an investment in dissemination be it by relying on links of official disaster communication channels or media, be it by more horizontal dissemination efforts.
The frequent occurrence of meteorological emergencies requires a high number of active volunteers, since volunteering should not interfere too much with volunteers professional or private lifes. For the French VOST, VISOV successful volunteer recruitment varies for instance between regions. It is not necessarily the regions where disasters occur often, that provide most of the volunteers that normally come from major population centers. Major and enduring crisis situations are also major challenge for volunteers, since rotating teams are needed and information output is high. Thus, most VOST activations concern local and regional crises, rather than national ones. Since VOST are complementary to official disaster communication channels, they are also less needed, when governments already direct important resources to communication, which is the case during major crises.