If I stopped you on the street and asked you to join me in a rampage of destruction, trashing private businesses and setting vehicles alight, would you say yes? Unlikely. The chances are you'd politely decline my request, assume I was as high as a kite, and make good your escape.
Yet this is exactly the call to arms that has been broadcast via social media in the UK, and hundreds - if not thousands - of young people have turned out to join the madness.
Mindless criminality is nothing new. But the speed at which pockets of rioters have organised themselves across the UK has taken not only London, but the entire country, by surprise. Police and the British Government have singled out social media as one of the main reasons for this apparent acceleration in events - with ringleaders marketing their own cause to the masses on an unstoppable scale.
Is social media being used to market criminal behavior to people that would ordinarily have no interest in such events? Does it allow these people to feel involved, where they would otherwise not be? And why does marketing an openly illegal and seemingly causeless event in this way have such strong results?
Great questions, Sarah! Personally I am completely fed up with Social Media being blamed for riots, civil unrest, and personal attacks on individuals. It's not social media that is responsible, it's the idiots who are using it.
ReplyDeleteDid we used to blame the telephone for riots before the days of social media?
The "conspiracy theorist" inside me sees two issues here: (i) old media using this as an excuse to attack new media; and (ii) governments using this as an excuse to limit freedom of speech online.
What do others think?
What this has proved is that social media is hugely successful in propagating and idea or a cause (good or bad).
ReplyDeleteWhile social media can't be blamed for the rioting, there is little doubt that without it the trouble would not have been so far-reaching and rapidly spread.
Its interesting that even supposed impoverished communities have access to social media in an instant. What other form of media can be used to simultaneously connect with every level of society - from politicians to brick-throwing anarchists!
And now, as quickly as gangs were organsied to cause the chaos, social media has been used to clean it all up:
http://mashable.com/2011/08/09/riot-cleanup-london/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2011/aug/09/social-media-riots-community-recovery
Great blog Sarah!!! Back 100 years ago, the rioters would have run through the streets gathering their crowd of fellow troublemakers. Ultimately speed is the only thing social networking/media can be blamed for - not the actual act. Thugs will be thugs, social media just enables them to connect easier! :)
ReplyDeleteIn the Herald Sun today in an opinion piece the issue of social media is raised in reference to the riots and I think it sums it up well:
ReplyDeleteWhile there are legitimate concerns that social media may be coalescing into the last bastion of overt racism in this country, the fact is that Facebook and other social media are tools just like any other. The same technology that assists or spurs a riot, conversely has youth groups meeting to paint houses or jam together, or community groups liaising to pick up rubbish. Social media is not the cause of the problems.
(link to full article:http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/riots-could-erupt-here-even-in-the-lucky-country/story-e6frfhqf-1226112649884)
And also, we need to remember the people in Egypt who called their newborn Facebook, to mark political revolution greatly influenced by a social media platform.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/21/facebook-baby-egyptian
This argument will go on for a long time still Wags. Great post Sarah.
ReplyDeleteI too don't see the point of blaming SM, they would have done it anyway. Sure the speed at which the word was spread may have been quicker but as was pointed out above, cleaning up words are now also spreading quicker.
Ross