In the wake of a controversial police shooting, Britain’s capital city has been rocked by two straight days of widespread rioting and looting. As with previous riots — such as those in Vancouver, British Columbia following the Stanley Cup final — everyone seems to be looking for a culprit, with some blaming Twitter and Facebook, and others pinning the violence on BlackBerry and its instant messaging abilities. But that’s a little like blaming individual trees for the forest fire. As we’ve pointed out before with respect to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, these are just aspects of our increasingly real-time, mobile and connected lives, and that can be an incredibly powerful force for both good and bad.
Although they are completely different in important ways, there are also some interesting similarities between the riots in London this weekend and the uprisings in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Both were triggered by the death of a man whom some believed was unfairly targeted by the authorities. In Britain, it was Mark Duggan — a 29-year-old father of four shot dead after being stopped by the police — and in Egypt, it was Khaled Said, a 28-year-old businessman who was pulled from an Idknternet cafe and beaten to death by security forces. Both deaths also led to the creation of Facebook pages that became the focus of a social-media effort that ultimately fueled the protests.
Different causes, same network effects
That said, the two demonstrations obviously had completely different causes and outcomes. In Egypt, the protests were the result of decades of corrupt and authoritarian rule by a dictator, as well as food shortages, unemployment and so on — and they led to the toppling of the government, followed by the military taking control of the country. In Britain (as in Vancouver), the events that allegedly triggered the riots seemed to be mostly an excuse for young thugs to loot stores and burn things.
As more than one person has pointed out (including notorious social-media skeptic Malcolm Gladwell) these kinds of riots and uprisings have been happening for centuries, without the need for Twitter or Facebook or BlackBerry’s BBM. But while they may not cause revolutions, there’s no question that these kinds of mobile, real-time networks and technologies can help to fuel them when they occur. As Jared Cohen of Google Ideas described in the aftermath of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, social media tools may not be a trigger for such events, but they can clearly act as “an accelerant.”
In some cases, this is because mobile and social tools like Twitter and Facebook and SMS messaging can be used to coordinate specific acts or gatherings, as some observers have said they were by thugs in London. But there’s another aspect to social-media use that can fuel these events, and that is the impact of seeing others posting about their behavior.
Social media provides validation
In other words, being able to see that demonstrators were revolting in Tunisia seemed to help trigger the same kind of response in Egypt, because it helped protesters in Tahrir Square in Egypt see themselves as part of a larger movement, or at least not alone in their desire to revolt. That’s a positive use of these tools (unless you’re a member of the totalitarian government in either country, of course), but the same phenomenon also theoretically makes it easier for people to justify their behavior in a riot in London, because others are doing the same thing.
Is this specific to social media like Twitter or Facebook? Hardly. As some noted about the almost hysterical coverage of these tools by mainstream media, television news reports and tabloid newspapers arguably do as much to publicize and legitimize that kind of behavior as any social network does.
The difference with Twitter and Facebook is that they are always on, and real-time in a way that even television often isn’t. But the real power comes from the connections that such tools allow between individuals: people who may not even know each other, but become part of a much larger phenomenon via their social connections and their ability to communicate quickly and easily. That can help citizens rise up against their dictatorial governments, but it can also help thugs and thieves take advantage of a cause to create panic and disorder. Unfortunately, you can’t have one without the other.
Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Petteri Sulonen
On the news, the rioters look like gangstas from Compton, or something. I think hiphop gangsta rap is the culprit of this insanity. It makes me sick. Young folk think it’s normal to act like an inner city gangsta.
I haven’t seen any hysteria whatsoever over social media in the UK riot coverage — but the near-universal glorying over the role SM played in toppling the Mubarak government earlier this year would certainly inspire reasonable people to draw comparisons between these two episodes of crowdsourced behaviors There is a legitimate question about social media’s role in the UK riots — especially with regard to the spread of violence to cities far from the London suburb where the shootings occurred. Might the Rodney King beating have sparked riots in Atlanta and Detroit, too, if there had been Facebook and Twitter?
WHO’S FREE for Helping Cleanup after UK’s riots?
Its a total disgrace! Lets band together with Friends on Who’s Free nearby you to help UK !
http://www.facebook.com/whosfree
Ways YOU can Help: (1) Invite Friends Nearby you & Clean Your neighbourhood, (2) Invite Friends Nearby you & Help your Local Favorite Shops/Restr, & more … WHO’S FREE to HELP?
A great piece outlining how social media, and real-time communication, can not only be a catalyst in bringing groups together but also how this same phenomenon given birth to real time feedback in the way of 24-hr news cycles, and instant on-demand reporting.
The next, more sinister, question perhaps is what role does law and enforcement now need to take in shaping and, dare I say it, control these channels?
After all BBM chat is traceable right back to the credit card owner of the phone account….
— Cameron Church
A few things, BBM is not a social network – it is private group short messaging service.
RIM should not release the messages en masse, this is not how legal interception is supposed to work.
The authorities should follow the law, and request interceptions of people they suspect as being thugs involved in this violence.
I’m not a big fan of Gladwell, but he is absolutely correct: these riots are not caused by BBM, but they have been “honed” by its use.
This is “traditional” thuggery and mindless violence, there are laws to combat that. Use them.
As you rightly put it, the “methods” used by these thugs are similar, if not the same as the methods used by people fighting and rioting for their freedom, and democracy in other countries.
Remove/interfere with these tools (which can be used for good or for bad) and you do the public a disservice.
You can’t blame social networks for organising riots! Social networks are a way of comminicating and if people who want to riot didn’t have them, they’d use chat rooms or some other form of mass communication such a forums and blogs. All the networks do is allow people to talk to each other – their plans to damage property and steal things is their own doing and their own behaviour is their own responsibility.
Check this Youtube Video http://t.co/mPJfgC3
This is rediculous. Are you insinuating these wouldn’t have happened if BBM and Twitter didn’t exist. It is in man’s very nature to use violence to express their anger at the cards life has dealt them. With or without twitter and BBM, these people would have done exactly the same thing. http://t.co/iWy2eaJ
Egypt 2.0 but in London. same cause. and again social media is the acceleration that fuelled this fire out of control. and no, prior to the Internet, Revolutions started just fine without FB and Twitter :D
http://mythoughtsontechnologyandjamaica.blogspot.com/2011/02/libyan-freedom-oil-prices-and.html
There are definitely parallels between television news reporting and social media networks for publicizing either good or bad behavior. And while social media networks are certainly not the root cause of local, national, or global protests/revolutions, the Internet and 24/7 access to social channels encourages a certain degree of sharing that attracts immediate attention with viral results. Unfortunately, in this situation, it fueled some really bad behavior. Great post—thanks for sharing your insight, Mathew.
Every time there is some social unrest somewhere in the world tech writers feel obligated to comment. Matt, why is that?
I do sometimes agree. As much as I don’t like it when its done wrong, this article is well written.
Unfortunately, this a result of the intersect between technology and human behaviour.
It is because joblessness and poverty in Britain don’t fool yourself.
Poverty? This is the 6th richest nation on Earth, nobody here knows what ‘poor’ even means. 500,000 Somali kids starving to death while stupid lazy rich westerners destroy their own neighbourhoods cos they feel ‘deprived’.
Looting shops, burning homes and mugging innocent bystanders is not “protesting”, it’s “being a criminal scumbag”.
I hope BBM, TW and FB keeps all that juicy evidence…
Spot on, Mark!
But what do you do when the services are run from the same country where the riot is happening? Someone on Twitter was saying RIM has confirmed they are giving the information about the rioters who were using BBM to the police.
As far as I know, RIM has just said that it is going to “assist the authorities,” but it’s not clear whether that means it is going to reveal the content of messages or the identities of users.
Why are we worrying about protecting the location and/or identity of rioters? The UK isn’t Libya, it has a reliable court system to protect individual rights. RIM should absolutely give location information and even identity information to the police to quell riots.
Twitter & Facebook will be the supreme courts in the future?
The world seems to be very upset right now… The “leaders” are going to have take notice and give people liberty now. http://welldrainedsoil.com