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BlackBerry messaging used to organize looting in London
BY BEATRICE FANTONI, POSTMEDIA NEWS AUGUST 8, 2011 9:40 PM
Police officers in riot gear block a road near a burning car on a street in Hackney, east London on Monday. Youths hurled missiles at police in northeast London on Monday as violence broke out in the British capital for a third night.
Photograph by: Luke MacGregor, Reuters
First it was revolutions, then it was riots. Smartphones are being used in London to organize looting as rioting continued Monday for the third day.
Youth in Britain's capital appeared to have used a free message service on BlackBerry mobile phones to co-ordinate attacks on shops and police.
Research In Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of BlackBerry smartphones, told Reuters it would work with British authorities.
"As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we co-operate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials. Similar to other technology providers in the U.K., we comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and U.K. police forces," said Patrick Spence, RIM's managing director for global sales.
"We feel for those impacted by this weekend's riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can," Spence said earlier in the day.
Riots broke out in north London on Saturday after a peaceful march to protest the police shooting of a young man. Hooded youths torched cars and buildings, hurled missiles at police and robbed stores.
People are quick to demonize social media — especially when property and personal safety are at risk — said Peter Chow-White, an expert in communication at Simon Fraser University in B.C. However, social media is simply a tool for criminal activity, rather than the catalyst, he told Postmedia News.
If anything, the riots in London, the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver or even the Arab Spring in the Middle East show just how embedded social media has become in our lives, Chow-White said.
"Communication is a fundamental part of human organization," he said. When human beings want to organize — whether for good or bad reasons — they use the latest tools at hand. In the case of London, those tools include BlackBerry phones, which come with a free message service and have become more affordable for everyday people.
And while the Internet and smartphones certainly change the scale of public communication during social unrest, they do not necessarily enlarge the protest or the riot itself, Chow-White said.
Christopher Schneider, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia, added that even though a riot is nothing new, social media could make it easier for people to connect and make the riot unfold much faster.
"Social media is a tool that people use to communicate," Schneider said. "A hammer is a tool. You can use it to build a home. You can use a hammer to bludgeon somebody to death," Schneider said. "It's how the tool is used."
As was seen in Vancouver earlier this year when riots broke out after the Stanley Cup final, the recourse to social media in riots or other illegal activities can be partly explained by the fact that we are more and more used to living our lives in public, he added.
"When we don't see immediate consequences for the information that we put out in the world we tend to see it as not mattering," Chow-White said. But the other side of the coin is that social media can also be used as a surveillance tool.
"The data's there, it's just a matter of whether (the police) have access to the database or not," he said.
Organizing robberies and tracking down suspected rioters is not the only thing going on in social media, he added. Messaging, Twitter and Facebook also play an alternative role in getting people talking, sharing information, expressing opinions or even just checking in on each other to make sure they're OK.
With files from Reuters
bfantoni@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/bfantoni
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/BlackBerr...#ixzz1UUo2bfeZ
BY BEATRICE FANTONI, POSTMEDIA NEWS AUGUST 8, 2011 9:40 PM
Police officers in riot gear block a road near a burning car on a street in Hackney, east London on Monday. Youths hurled missiles at police in northeast London on Monday as violence broke out in the British capital for a third night.
Photograph by: Luke MacGregor, Reuters
First it was revolutions, then it was riots. Smartphones are being used in London to organize looting as rioting continued Monday for the third day.
Youth in Britain's capital appeared to have used a free message service on BlackBerry mobile phones to co-ordinate attacks on shops and police.
Research In Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of BlackBerry smartphones, told Reuters it would work with British authorities.
"As in all markets around the world where BlackBerry is available, we co-operate with local telecommunications operators, law enforcement and regulatory officials. Similar to other technology providers in the U.K., we comply with the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and co-operate fully with the Home Office and U.K. police forces," said Patrick Spence, RIM's managing director for global sales.
"We feel for those impacted by this weekend's riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can," Spence said earlier in the day.
Riots broke out in north London on Saturday after a peaceful march to protest the police shooting of a young man. Hooded youths torched cars and buildings, hurled missiles at police and robbed stores.
People are quick to demonize social media — especially when property and personal safety are at risk — said Peter Chow-White, an expert in communication at Simon Fraser University in B.C. However, social media is simply a tool for criminal activity, rather than the catalyst, he told Postmedia News.
If anything, the riots in London, the Stanley Cup riot in Vancouver or even the Arab Spring in the Middle East show just how embedded social media has become in our lives, Chow-White said.
"Communication is a fundamental part of human organization," he said. When human beings want to organize — whether for good or bad reasons — they use the latest tools at hand. In the case of London, those tools include BlackBerry phones, which come with a free message service and have become more affordable for everyday people.
And while the Internet and smartphones certainly change the scale of public communication during social unrest, they do not necessarily enlarge the protest or the riot itself, Chow-White said.
Christopher Schneider, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia, added that even though a riot is nothing new, social media could make it easier for people to connect and make the riot unfold much faster.
"Social media is a tool that people use to communicate," Schneider said. "A hammer is a tool. You can use it to build a home. You can use a hammer to bludgeon somebody to death," Schneider said. "It's how the tool is used."
As was seen in Vancouver earlier this year when riots broke out after the Stanley Cup final, the recourse to social media in riots or other illegal activities can be partly explained by the fact that we are more and more used to living our lives in public, he added.
"When we don't see immediate consequences for the information that we put out in the world we tend to see it as not mattering," Chow-White said. But the other side of the coin is that social media can also be used as a surveillance tool.
"The data's there, it's just a matter of whether (the police) have access to the database or not," he said.
Organizing robberies and tracking down suspected rioters is not the only thing going on in social media, he added. Messaging, Twitter and Facebook also play an alternative role in getting people talking, sharing information, expressing opinions or even just checking in on each other to make sure they're OK.
With files from Reuters
bfantoni@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/bfantoni
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/BlackBerr...#ixzz1UUo2bfeZ
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