data storm

A "data storm" refers to a sudden incident that grows uncontrollably with exponentially larger amounts of news coverage in complete disproportion to its original newsworthiness. For example, when a Florida University student was tasered, it resulted in a "data storm" (see example below).

Originally an obscure piece of Internet jargon that's occasionally used by cybrarians, computer techies and other IT professionals, the technical "data storm" is most commonly caused by a defective card or cable that starts wildly sending out bad packets of data. Other parts of the network respond to the bad packets, causing yet more parts to respond and so on, until the whole system is either responding to the packets or responding to the responses.

Historical perspective: The media version of a data storm consists of several stages as the Florida tasering incident reveals. This particular data storm started in typically banal fashion: A student named Andrew Meyer started ranting about the 2004 elections to Senator John Kerry during a forum. The campus police attempted to remove him from the auditorium and, in the process of subduing him, tasered him. Multiple video cameras captured Meyer's tasering and the footage on YouTube spawned millions of hits and threads until the incident became so big it was impossible for the mainstream media to ignore.

You can see the progression: calm grows to a squall in the blogosphere, which turns into a full-fledged outrage porn in the mainstream media.The data storm hit the late-night comedy circuit, which, in this case, rapidly dissipated it. Then host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, stamped out the madness with something along the lines of: Today, police brutality collided with college student douchebaggery. There are no winners here. 

Debunked and its energy spent, the data storm swirled out of the mainstream and back into the confines of the blogosphere. All in all, pretty harmless stuff -- unless you happen to be Meyer, who spent a night in jail and may be charged a first-degree felony and a second-degree misdemeanor. It was also pretty bad for the campus police because two of the officers were placed on administrative leave by the university. Both seemingly disproportionate responses to a disproportionate story. That's the thing about the data storm, it's entertaining to watch unless you happen to be caught in one.