After news broke that Google executive Wael Ghonim is missing in Egypt, Twitter users have banned together to track those who are unaccounted for amid escalating protests in the country. After hearing the news about Ghonim, two people, one in Lebanon and another in Canada, have created a spreadsheet to crowd source information that could help them track down Ghonim and other missing persons.
"Wael's a part of a circle of young entrepreneurs in the region," tech entrepreneur Samer Karam told the Wall Street Journal. "I woke up today and saw thousands of tweets about him and thought, 'If Wael's missing, God knows how many more are.'"
Tamer Salama, an IT consultant based in Calgary, Alberta, is collaborating with Karam. He had been following the status of Ghonim after friends started to tweet about the situation last week.
"I knew there would be more people not accounted for," she said.
The pair created a public spreadsheet on Google Docs to collect information about every individual reported missing. The list includes information like the when and where the person was last seen, the last time the person was seen online, a photo, and links to the individuals' Facebook and Twitter accounts. Karam and Salama moderate and update the document, asking people to direct message them on Twitter with additional information.
The pair has had some success thus far. While the spreadsheet lists information for 10 individuals that are still unaccounted for, there are eight on the list that are marked as found. When a person is located, their information is pulled from the list, for privacy reasons.
Although the spreadsheet has already been viewed nearly 10,000 times, simply accessing it is a challenge for most people in Egypt. The government cut off Internet access in the country late last week. Until Monday, Internet was available through a single ISP, Noor Group, but it was also yanked from the Web yesterday afternoon.
The matter of the list's authenticity is also an issue.
"Some people are claiming that these lists aren't real and it's just the Egyptian security service collecting names and information and so on," Karam said. "This doesn't really function well if people in Egypt, on the ground, aren't contributing."