By Ally Mullord
Social networking sites like Twitter have been “a double-edged sword” during the UK riots, says Auckland University PhD researcher Jonathan Albright.
Social media is being blamed for helping the rioting in the UK to spread, but Mr Albright says networking platforms aren’t to blame “as much as they are responsible for helping to organise co-ordination”.
He says the use of social media is “very typical of these types of these situations in organising looting mobs and riots” as it is easily accessible and allows constant updates between rioters.
London rioters co-ordinated mobs using social networking, primarily over BlackBerry instant messaging – which Mr Albright says appeals as it's encrypted and difficult for authorities to intercept.
“It’s very hard for authorities to access information… because these messages through BlackBerry aren’t publically available,” he says.
Police and government authorities have to request information from BlackBerry owner RIM in order to access the messages.
British Prime Minister David Cameron has talked about shutting down Twitter – something Mr Albright says is theoretically possible but has met with resistance from the social networking site.
“Twitter responded and said that there is a right of freedom of speech and freedom of expression and they would work with authorities, but they stop short of actually instigating any kind of shutdown.”
However there have been beneficial uses of social media during the riots, with Twitter being used to organise neighbourhood protection and cleanup groups and spread useful information.
Mr Albright says it’s likely that police will monitor social networking sites much more closely in the future – leading to increased concerns around privacy issues.
Watch the video for the full interview
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