Flashmobbing, London style

London erupted in rioting over the weekend, initially sparked by questions about the police shooting of a renegade youth gang member/young local community member (make your mind up) but the most interesting bit has been the use of social media (apparently mainly Blackberry Mobile Messenger, but that may just be Twitter and Facebook apologists trying to ensure that they are only seen to promote Good Riots* )

Apparently the looters and vandals used "flashmobbing" techniques to organise the liberation of many televisons, pairs of trainers and other goods essential to the revolution, and then to dynamically keep ahead of the police - this from onlookers in Brixton - BBC:

I saw Foot Locker on fire in Brixton High Street after midnight on Sunday. They got in and made off with widescreen TVs, vacuum cleaners, and computers. KFC and McDonalds were smashed up.
About a five-minute walk away in Effra Road, Currys was getting broken into. Nearly 200 people were there trying to get through the metal shutters. Eventually they got in and made off with widescreen TVs, vacuum cleaners, and computers. There were riot police near Brixton station, but there was no police presence in Effra Road for at least 40 minutes.

.....


I live close to Currys in Brixton. I watched hooded youths brazenly running up my road towards the store. At about 01:00, my usually quiet road was filled with cars coming from the direction of Effra Road and Currys. This could have been due to traffic being diverted, or it could have been the opportunists taking their loot home. One man walked casually past my window carrying a fairly large box, with a wide smile on his face.

Anyway, regardless of the whys and wherefores of why the riots started and by whom, this brings home the dark side of Social Media that we have been going on about for years but is typically blithely ignored by the Social media pundits - apostles, conference promoters, authors and service suppliers. Probably a good thing, as it allows a more reasoned discussion of what checks and balances Social Media services need. Also a wake up call for the London (and any big city) police to get more "with it" with new media technology.

*Twitter was full of the data too, as my first information on ths came within minutes that way - so in my opinion blaming Blackberry only is a tad disingenuous