How Blackberry, Not Twitter, Fuelled The Fire Under London’s Riots

[AdamG]

Over the weekend parts of London descended into chaos as riots and looting spread after a protest organised around the yet unexplained shooting of a man by Police. Of course, there was huge amounts of chatter on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, with the latter coming under enormous amounts of criticism from the UK press for fuelling the fire. But while Twitter has largely been the venue of spectators to violence and is a handy public venue for journalists to observe, it would appear the non-public BlackBerry BBM messaging network has been the method of choice for organising it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/how-blackberry-not-twitter-fuelled-the-fire-under-londons-riots/2011/08/08/gIQAPF1x1I_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpos t

[davidbfpo]

A more nuanced, early commentary on the BBC:
It may turn out, after a more careful examination of the various messages being pinged around, that this was indeed a social networking crime spree.

The Met has indicated it is ready to act on any information it finds.

But that will take time and a more methodical study.

The extent to which investigators are able to sift out genuine rioters from the internet 'echo chamber' and then bring real world prosecutions will provide valuable lessons, both about the use and abuse of technology, and also law enforcement's capacity to deal with it.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14442203

[AdamG]

Interesting supporting tactic
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01968/21cxauf_1968242a.jpg

[AdamG]

Twitter has refused to close the accounts of London rioters who used the service to spread unrest and insisted that Tweets must 'continue to flow'.
The US-based company said that 'freedom of expression' was essential and that information would be 'kept flowing'.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2024295/UK-riots-2011-Spooks-trail-BlackBerry-Messenger-ringleaders.html#ixzz1Ue80C7mT