London Riots and Social Media

The role of social networking outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry Messenger (BBM) in contributing to the riots over the last few days has been hotly discussed.  Many have voiced concern they should be shut down or limited.  This kind of knee-jerk reaction to the role of social media would be unnecessary and exceedingly inappropriate.  Rather than shutting these sites down, perhaps there is information to be garnered from working in conjunction with them.

BBM has been acknowledged as the network of choice for the rioters to communicate with each other due to its level of privacy from police surveillance.  With nearly 40% of London’s teens choosing Blackberry as their smartphone of choice, this creates a potentially huge audience for encouraging further violence.  In response, many have called for Blackberry to shut down the service temporarily to curb the violence.  Patrick Spence from Blackberry said “We feel for those impacted by this weekend’s riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can” and pledged to work with law enforcement and comply with the law in the UK.

Limiting social networking in the public sphere will not limit violence or deter potential criminals.  In fact, they may even be feeding the public response to resolve the ongoing problems on the streets of London.  Anyone following the #londonriots hashtag on Twitter will see one of the most rapid streams of disapproval of the scenes taking place in London.  People are exchanging photos and videos to identify perpetrators, introducing hash tags and putting pressure on politicians and policeman to respond quickly and more resolutely and arranging community efforts to support the victims in these neighbourhoods.  Additionally, many social network-savvy teens will implicate themselves on these forums, and these statements would be useful to law enforcement in apprehending offenders.

Twitter and Facebook and other public web outlets have been attributed to a number of social movements in the last several months, from Egypt to Libya and so forth.  Police should be taking advantage of the masses of information people are putting on public forums rather than shutting them down due to the deplorable actions of a small minority.  The vast majority of onlookers in the UK and around the globe are appalled by the riots, and I think most of them would happily see communities work with law enforcement through social networking outlets to stop the violence and bring the criminals to justice.