section_path: Society/Impact/Emergency use
section_name: Emergency use
paragraph_text: Emergency use
  
  A practical use for Twitter's real-time functionality is as an effective de facto emergency communication system for breaking news. It was neither intended nor designed for high-performance communication, but the idea that it could be used for emergency communication was not lost on the creators, who knew that the service could have wide-reaching effects early on when the company used it to communicate during earthquakes. Another practical use that is being studied is Twitter's ability to track epidemics and how they spread. Additionally Twitter serves as a real-time sensor for natural disasters such as bushfires and earthquakes.