April 13, 2011: The U.S. is planning to eliminate the five-color terrorism alert level system and, instead, use Twitter and Facebook to more quickly distribute more detailed terror alerts. Government officials noted that there are already 150 million Americans on Facebook. That's about half the entire population. Only six percent of Americans use Twitter, but that six percent stays on top of things and are well connected with the mass media and major news sites on the Internet.

American counter-terror officials will experiment with using Facebook and Twitter to distribute information in order to find out what can be sent, at what speed and reach. Speed and reach are expected to be faster than any alternatives.