By now, you know the news: Osama bin Laden is no more. Whether he died in a blazing gunfight or was taken out by surprise (the reports are a little vague here), Seal Team 6 completed their mission.

And for some people, that completed mission was cause for celebration.  Last Sunday evening and Monday morning, American flags were hoisted into the air, people stood out on the streets cheering and the internet was buzzing with elation. If you owned a Twitter or Facebook account, you saw it. 

I certainly did.  In fact, I learned about bin Laden’s death before the President even announced it: I was Facebook chatting with the very friend who was sitting next to me almost 10 years ago when the twin towers came down and suddenly, status updates were exploding.

“I think Osama bin Laden was just shot,” I typed to my friend who had been in the same English classroom on September 11th, who had rushed to the phone at the same time as me, our fathers both frequent passengers on that particular flight across the US, “I can’t be sure but Facebook is freaking out.”

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