"When a gunman began firing inside an academic building on the Brown University campus, students didn't wait for official alerts warning of trouble. They got information almost instantly, in bits and bursts - through phones vibrating in pockets, messages from strangers, rumors that felt urgent because they might keep someone alive. On Dec. 13 as the attack at the Ivy League institution played out during finals week, students took to Sidechat, an anonymous, campus-specific message board used widely at U.S. colleges, for fast-flowing information in real time."
"Fifteen minutes before the university's first alert of an active shooter, students were already documenting the chaos. Their posts - raw, fragmented and sometimes panicked - formed a digital time capsule of how a college campus experienced a mass shooting. As students sheltered in place, they posted while hiding under library tables, crouching in classrooms and hallways. Some comments even came from wounded students, like one posting a selfie from a hospital bed with the simple caption: #finalsweek."
A gunman opened fire inside an academic building at Brown University during finals week, prompting students to seek and share immediate information via phones and Sidechat. Posts began before the university's first active-shooter alert, producing raw, fragmented accounts from students sheltering under tables, in classrooms and hallways. Nearly 8,000 posts were collected from the 36 hours after the shooting, capturing urgent questions about lockdowns, shooter location and safety. Some posts came from wounded students. Authorities later found the suspect dead in New Hampshire of a self-inflicted gunshot and linked him to the killing of an MIT professor. Sidechat permits anyone with a verified university email to post to a campus feed that normally features everyday student life content.
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