Neoco

Surely by now everyone is in the loop about the city riots that occurred during the last week, and fingers have been pointing the blame at social media and its role in “fuelling” such devastatingly destructive disturbances. As a result, those concerned have pleaded for social networking outlets, including Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry’s instant-messaging software “BBM”, to be limited or shut down.

With nearly half the teenage population of the UK armed with smartphones, reckless looting thugs “mis”-used such popular platforms to co-ordinate the uproar in anti-social disorder throughout the capital and beyond. These (mostly young) opportunists were able to determine the next target areas to attack and to summon other potential rioters to join them in looting and vandalising local businesses. The police issued warnings to individuals who were using tweets as a means to promote further havoc, that they wouldn’t go unpunished. A major surge of law-abiding twitter users expressed their anger towards the ghastly events. One tweet read “Only in the UK can rioters wear £100 trainers, arrange riots on £300 smartphones and claim they’re in poverty”.

It turns out Blackberry Messenger has been widely recognised as the main communicative medium among teens inciting the angry violence compared to Twitter and Facebook. Why? BBM is what you could call a “shadow social network” – this free and easily accessible service has managed to replace traditional SMS, and Government authorities as yet have no facilities to effectively trace private conversations taking place between Blackberry PINs. One-to-many BBM broadcasts send out messages to all saved BBM contacts in an instant. The Guardian discovered a remorseless broadcast in particular which said:

“Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London (central) OXFORD CIRCUS!!, Bare SHOPS are gonna get smashed up so come get some (free stuff!!!) fuck the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! >:O Dead the ends and colour war for now so if you see a brother… SALUT! if you see a fed… SHOOT!”

Who would have thought a Blackberry phone originally made for corporate business folk would be a threat to national security in the hands of misguided teenagers? Thankfully, the police intervened and the West End plot fell through. The power of social media was quick to counteract the intense level of the damage done for an exceedingly uplifting cause in a desperate attempt to reclaim the streets of London. The “R.I.P Mark Duggan” Facebook fan page has received almost 30,000 likes in support of his family and the police since it was created last week. Wall posts were urging those partaking in the disruptions to stop.

Meanwhile, Twitter played a crucial role in organising one of the highest trending topics of the week – #riotcleanup – which saw hundreds of amazing people from all backgrounds respond with a united heart for their communities. Anti-riot locals eagerly volunteered to clean up the mess in their neighbourhoods with the help of good old rubber gloves, brooms and heavy-duty bin bags.

Furthermore, the ever-growing collation of released photographs on the Catch a Looter Tumblr blog bluntly exposes looters caught on camera in order to encourage members of the public to help the police identify and crack down on those involved in the burglaries. The Metropolitan police have also established a Flickr photo set called London Disorder – Operation Withern as an additional method to track and prosecute destructive criminals. So far, this has proved successful and police have made 1,051 arrests since the London riots subsided on Wednesday – a number of which were connected to provoking violence through social media. In addition, almost 600 people have been taken to court and charged, and a 17-year-old girl from Croydon even handed herself into the authorities after photographs of her standing at the crime scene were shown on national television and newspapers.

Yesterday in his speech at the House of Commons, Prime Minister David Cameron claimed: “We are making technology work for us, by capturing the images of the perpetrators on CCTV – so even if they haven’t yet been arrested, their faces are known and they will not escape the law.”

Cameron has also proposed banning suspected rioters from having access to social media tools, in an attempt to stop them being able to cause further trouble. Despite the obvious ethical and freedom of speech issues, home secretary Theresa May is expected to meet with Facebook, Twitter and Research In Motion to discuss their perceived responsibilities. This could mark a shift in UK internet policy that will doubtless spark tension between freedom-of-speech believers and the government. Attempting to ban Facebook and Twitter from the younger generation is a pretty impossible mission and it will be interesting to see what final decisions are made in light of the Government’s love/hate relationship with the industry.

Fair enough, social media played a part in stirring things up, but this was only the case in the hands of criminally minded agitators. However, we also think that social media deserves some credit for turning things around and helping to bring communities back together. Let’s hope calmer heads will prevail in a few weeks and both the Government and local communities can move beyond calling for knee-jerk reactions.

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