The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people rushed to verify accounts of Jackson’s death. According to a BBC report, search giant Google confirmed that when the news first broke, it feared it was under attack. Millions of people who searched the star’s name on Google around the time he was officially pronounced dead were greeted with an error page rather than a list of results.
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Google said Friday it thought it was under attack when a barrage of “Michael Jackson” searches pelted its servers Thursday afternoon as news spread of the entertainer’s sudden death.
For about 25 minutes people looking for news about Jackson were greeted with a page which suggests the query was automated and would not be honored without the completion of a CAPTCHA-like challenge. “To protect our servers, we can’t process your request right now,” it said.
Google also said that “We saw one of the largest mobile search spikes we’ve ever seen, with 5 of the top 20 searches about the Moonwalker.”
As depicted in the chart above, the search spike was nearly vertical at shortly before 3 pm, and tapered off as the day wore on. Google didn’t quantify the number and the chart they published has no values in the “y” axis. But from a relative zero at 2 pm PT it seems to skyrocket in the moments just before 3 pm.
(As posted on google's blog)
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Microblogging service Twitter too crashed owing to the sheer volume of people using the service. Several other websites either slowed or crashed.
In an example of the growing power of social networking sites, as well as breaking the news of Michael Jackson’s death first, both Facebook and Twitter are struggling this morning under the strain of fans rushing to let people know and give tribute to the legendary pop singer.
According to Mashable: “at least 30 per cent of Tweets are remarking upon the star’s tragic passing.” Mashable used the Twitter tracking tool Twist to check for mentions of “Michael Jackson” and “MJ” in users’ Tweets.
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At the height of his career, Jackson was indisputably the biggest star in the world, selling over 500 million albums. Radio stations across the US reacted to his death with marathon sessions of his songs. MTV, which grew successful in part as a result of his groundbreaking videos, reprised its early days as a music channel by showing his biggest hits.
From his days in the Jackson 5 to his solo career in the 1980s and early 1990s, Jackson gave a string of hits that exploited his high voice, energy and ear for irresistible hooks. But over the years, he became more character than singer: his sequinned glove, whitened face and moonwalk move became part of the cultural firmament.
His career hit its peak with the release in 1982 of ‘Thriller’, the largest selling album of all time. But his career later disintegrated. His darkest moment came in 2003, when he was indicted on child molesting charges. A young cancer patient claimed the singer had groped him at his Neverland estate, but Jackson was acquitted on all charges.
