This year, London has taken more than its fair share of rioting, demonstrations, looting and arson. I was as shocked as anybody when watching Saturday and Sunday’s events in London unfold, first by an increasing amount of Facebook status updates, then the news on the radio and finally live footage on Sky News.
In this year’s public disturbances – such as the student protests – press commentary has focused on the role of social networking and how it has played its part in the planning and coordination of demonstrators and protesters.
Online social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have more often than not been identified as heavily-used platforms for precisely such purposes.
As I read the papers today, it seemed that yet again, everyone was quick to pin the unfolding of events around London on Facebook, and more prominently Twitter. However, digging a little deeper, it seems that they were not for once the usual suspects.
Blackberry Messenger (or BBM as my son informs me) is the real social network of choice for Britain’s youth, and over the course of the weekend’s events, it appears to have been the main tool for organising and spreading messages between rioters.
As we watched the live feed of burning buses and cars on the news, my son informed me he’d been following the whole thing for some time via his Blackberry.
To communicate using BBM, users have to exchange their phones’ IDs or PINs. The messages are private, but PINs can be spread extremely quickly using traditional social networking avenues, Twitter, Facebook, and of course SMS.
Users can then subscribe to BBM groups, and then broadcast or read group messages. This appears to have been the case on Saturday and Sunday. BBM is fast, free and unlike Twitter and Facebook, very private. In fact, some countries in the Middle East have banned BBM due to its secure nature.
Whilst casual observers and commentators tweeted photos of burning cars, and commented via status updates, the looters, rioters and gangs where all apparently communicating via BBM and exploiting its secure network and group messaging abilities. Police were left almost apparently clueless as to what was happening and where.
So has this terrible weekend of rioting and looting brought the fast growing Blackberry Messenger social network to the fore? Having a good look around Twitter, Facebook and the news websites today, it certainly appears to be the means by which really fast-breaking news, gossip and group messages are increasingly being shared.
photo courtesy nicobonbinus
Social media does not only empower criminals. Now also the police is trying to use social media to their advantage helping to stop crime. The NYPD has just formed a new unit to track troublemakers announcing plans or brag about their crimes on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.
The new juvenile justice unit will mine social media, looking for information about troublesome house parties, gang showdowns and other potential mayhem.
Here, the London police are also turning to social media and started posting stills from surveillance cameras on their Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/sets/72157627267892973/), asking for help in identifying suspects. Relying on technology instead of community tip-offs seems to be the next logical step for our surveillance-friendly capital.