While the US military and in particular the Navy Seals get credit for wiping out world menace Osama Bin Laden, one Twitter user in Abbottabad, Pakistan gets credit for being the first to report about the raid, even if he didn’t realize what he was tweeting about.
Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual, posted on Twitter about helicopters hovering in the air over his city hours before the international media started reporting the death of the al Qaeda leader. He joked about breaking out a giant swatter to bring down the noisy choppers, unaware of their appointed duty.
Upon realizing he unknowingly had the early scoop, Athar added thsi tweet,
“Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.”
Lost Remote has a timeline of Athar’s tweets at the bottom of this page that also includes a number of other social media responses.
With the use of Twitter in the Egyptian uprisings and now providing details about the military raid that caused cheers around the world, the site is definitely becoming a go-to outlet for breaking news. Maybe Time will include Athar on next year’s list of most influential Tweeters.