London Riots? Blame The Blackberry!
from the oh-come-on dept
The London riots sound a bit crazy, but perhaps even crazier is the fact that officials now seem to want to blame messaging via Blackberry devices for the riots:Steve Kavanagh, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, said that "really inflamatory, inaccurate" messages on Twitter were mainly to blame for the disorder. "Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality," he said at a press conference on Monday afternoon.Ah, right, just like vocal cords, pamphlets, telephones and other communication tools "were mainly to blame" for previous riots. Hint to the Metropolitan police: if you're going to always blame the tool, you're not going to do a very good job dealing with riots. If people want to speak out, they'll figure out a way to speak out. It's not the technology that is to blame. The technology is just a tool, and if you block off one path, you can be damn sure that they'll figure out another path instead.
Of course, the downside of officials misleadingly blaming the technology is that you get folks like this Dutch politician who took to Twitter about this to ask why police don't just turn off Blackberry Messenger in London -- perhaps not realizing that shutting that channel of communications down wouldn't stop anything -- but likely would anger people even more.
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Filed Under: blackberry, blame, london, riots
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Pathetic
Thankfully there was at least one sensible police officer on the TV last night pointing out how, rather than blaming twitter etc. for the violence we should actually be embracing it as a tool for the police to track movements and criminal activity.
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Re: Pathetic
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Re: Pathetic
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Ridiculous Mail cartoon here:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/08/08/article-2023898-0D5B475000000578-416_634x573.jpg
They probably won't even mentioned that the #riotcleanup hashtag on Twitter is encouraging people to get out and clean up the mess.
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Twitter made me do it
Think I just found my new scapegoat. "Twitter made me do it".
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Wrong target
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Re: Wrong target
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didn't you jum the gun a little?
The fact that the certain individual (ab)use some service does not mean the service is responsible, which of course you know, but... I might have missed something but it seems to me it's you who conflate service with its users, not him. Maybe you have seen so many examples of officials blaming third parties that you see that even where there is none of it and you are putting it into his mouth.
Please see that article you linked: Asked whether those behind the messages could be arrested, Kavanagh said: "Absolutely."
I don't see anything about blaming BlackBerry.
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Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
"BlackBerry Messenger service played a key role in organising the London riots."
"Patrick Spence, the managing director regional marketing at Research In Motion (RIM), confirmed that the BlackBerry manufacturer had contacted police to assist with the investigation."
"BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) appears to be the favoured method of planning the unrest that has swept across north London since Saturday evening. "
"RIM can be legally ordered to hand over details to police of users suspected of unlawful activity."
"Although Twitter and Facebook have played a key role in past unrest in the capital, the Tottenham riots are thought to be the first in the UK so heavily orchestrated using BlackBerry Messenger."
"Evidence of rioters planning where to hit next spread quickly on the networks as the police struggled to keep up."
"One BBM broadcast posted on Monday evening appeared to urge protesters to go looting in Stratford, east London. "If you're down for making money, we're about to go hard in east london tonight, yes tonight!!" it said. "I don't care what ends you're from, we're personally inviting you to come and get it in. Police have taken the piss for too long and to be honest I don't know why its taken so long for us make this happen. We need a minimum of 200 hungry people. We're not broke, but who says no to free stuff. Doesn't matter if the police arrive cos we'll just chase dem out because as you've seen on the news, they are NOT ON DIS TING. Everyone meet at 7 at stratford park and let's get rich.""
etc.
Needless to say, the article linked does indeed give the impression, and those quotes are just some that came from it. The quote also comes from the original article, so if it is misquoted, then Mike just re-quoted the misquote from the original article.
So, you good sir, please read the article that was linked, and then try stating again that Mike jumped to the wrong conclusion because of all of the Jello floating around in his head, or whatever you are trying to say, because I don't see where he has seen to many examples of third parties being blamed and therefore mis-represents the story that he took the information from.
He may be opinionated, but I do not see where his opinion of their article is not spot on.
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Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
Claims like "BlackBerry Messenger service played a key role..." are just stating the facts similarly like stating "the knife was used as a murder weapon", which does not imply that the knife (or it's producer) is to be blamed.
And the fact that BlackBerry is helping investigation? They are helping because they are some kind of a "witness", someone who can have access to some information about what happened... which again in no way implies that they are held responsible for anything.
"RIM can be legally ordered to hand over details to police of users suspected of unlawful activity." ? The same.
And so on... I don't see how any of your quoutes implies any blame.
I don't know what you mean by that "Jello floating"... I was just referring to the fact that articles about someone blaming some third party are pretty common here at Techdirt and I guess that phenomenon is pretty common.
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Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
Quoted from the article.
Other sources, meanwhile, seem to be blaming blackberry more, and noting its much larger use/role in the riots.
The only jump Mike appears to be making, is that of assuming Mr. Kavanagh felt that the larger role played by blackberry would be as much/more to blame for than twitter.
I think that's reasonable, given that if both had an effect, than surely the one that was used much, much more had much more of an effect?
Regardless, let's account for Mike's bias. He cares about technology. His intention in the article is:
"It's not the technology that is to blame. The technology is just a tool, and if you block off one path, you can be damn sure that they'll figure out another path instead. "
Blackberry or Twitter, pick your technology. As far as Mike and his bias are concerned, this can be a simple typo.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
> commissioner of the Metropolitan police,
> said that "really inflamatory, inaccurate"
> messages on Twitter were mainly to blame
> for the disorder."
> Quoted from the article.
It says the *messages* are to blame. Not Twitter itself.
Yes, the messages people are writing and the people who are writing them are to blame. No one's suggesting that the Blackberry or Twitter services themselves have culpability.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
I agree that what the police are saying stops short of actually outright blaming twitter. But then, if that wasn't their intent, why even mention 'social media' or 'twitter'?
Here, let me re-word it without mentioning them:
Before:
"really inflamatory, inaccurate" messages on Twitter were mainly to blame for the disorder. "Social media and other methods have been used to organise these levels of greed and criminality,
"
After:
"really inflamatory, inaccurate" messages were mainly to blame for the disorder. "The group used many different communication methods to organize these levels of greed and criminality,"
See? No blame. If you want to, you can even include, after 'communication methods': (Twitter and Blackberry messaging in particular were used extensively).
And although the police might not be outright blaming twitter, there are plenty of people who are.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
> why even mention 'social media'
> or 'twitter'?
Same reason they'd mention pamphlets, if the messages were on pamphlets. It's just being informative rather than vague.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
They weren't mentioned at all.
Actually, there was a mass printing of advice sheets that were handed out; I think those are much more interesting, because of examination of these might prove they were printed out days ahead of time.
http://yfrog.com/z/h07mxcyzj
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
The image was linked to me as an advice sheet handed out during the riots, and tottenham is a place in London according to google maps.
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Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
Can you see the connection? Can you see that it's not direct but it is direct? Imply or idirectly blame something then add censorship afterwards.
Too much myopia my friend.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
There are so many real problems that sometimes we see some wrongdoing everywhere. But we have to be careful about that - there is really thin line between freedom defender and tin-foil-hat freak.
And BTW, please don't call me friend when you don't mean it. It feels like patronizing... and I am sure you would not want that.
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Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
with the statements made by the Metropolitan Police - and that's not what they said.
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Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
No.
> They haven't even implied in any way?
No.
> They haven't even contacted RIM or considered
> the idea of spying on the BBM network?
Of course they have. They have relevant information in a criminal investigation. No different than the cops contacting the phone company for information on someone who phoned in a bomb threat. Doesn't mean they're blaming telephones for the bomb threat.
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Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
Are you seriously telling me there wasn't one single officer with a BlackBerry? Why would you need to keep up with the perps if they're telling you their next target?
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Re: Re: didn't you jum the gun a little?
> have been looking at when he was writing this:
Not one of those quotes blames Blackberry/RIM for anything. It's just factual reporting on how the riots are being organized.
Are the police/media supposed to ignore it in their reporting just because it's a fun new technology that we all enjoy?
If the riots were being organized via pamphlets and the police noted that fact in their press conference, would that equate to 'blaming the written word' for the riots? Of course not. It would just be a factual account of how the riots were occurring.
Same thing here.
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as per usual, when it suits, it suits, when it doesn't, it doesn't!
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The weird thing with this is, nobody actually has anything to say - and certainly no unified message. They're just angry, and smashing stuff up and stealing stuff.
The government don't even know what to say or how to respond because they don't understand it... Very interesting (and frightening) times.
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they riot in other countries, but why doesn't Hillary say this about England??
protesting for days, buildings burning, hundreds arrested, dozens of police hurt
when will NATO start a bombing campaign for freedom loving Englanders???
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Re:
Watts Riots 1965, Student Strike of 1970, May Day Riots 1971, Greensboro Riots 1979, Rodney King/Los Angeles Riots 1992, Seattle Riots 1999, Cincinnati Riots 2001...
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Re:
Those protests/riots in North Africa/Middle East had a unified protest message and wanted to invoke change in their respective countries.
The scumbags that were doing the rioting in London wanted to do nothing more than Loot/Steal a new TV/Stereo and to trash local businesses.
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Re: Re:
Why?
Those protests/riots in North Africa/Middle East had a unified protest message and wanted to invoke change in their respective countries.
The scumbags that were doing the rioting in London wanted to do nothing more than Loot/Steal a new TV/Stereo and to trash local businesses.
Since the next thing you do is to make exactly that comparison.
The point here is that the technology is neutral. Those who want to shut the technology down shoyuld be aware that if they were successful (which may not be possible as Mubarak found out) then they would be reinforcing oppressive regimes all around the world.
99% of what keeps us safe is public consent. 1% is the security forces.
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What followed has been criticised by the partner of the victim.
They have used his shooting as a pitiful excuse to go on the rampage, looting and setting fire to peoples homes does not help anyone who wishes to protest against police actions, it only helps (albeit temporarily) the theives, and possibly the arsonists (if they follow the trend of getting gratification, sexual or otherwise, from watching whatever it is that they've set alight, burn)
The communities that are being torn or burnt down are the ones losing out, and what's worse is that these rioters are doing all this on their own doorstep, so they are, in fact, only going to end up hurting themselves and those around them.
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So, why don't we use those platforms to achieve the opposite: engage the "agitators" and their would-be followers on their own channels, and try to persuade them to stop or not even begin to make a mess.
You know: fight bad/offensive/dangerous speech with more and open speech?
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Re:
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Re: Re:---Used Goods Are Cheap.
In the case of Europe, the main point is that they don't have a whole lot of abusive telecommunications monopolies, the way we do in the United States.
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Give the police a break
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So now we can 'blame' FB and Twitter for the clean up
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14456857
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Sure am glad I have a Droid
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Re:
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Re:
Here, it's not only irrelevant how rioters communicated with each other (Blackberry/Twitter certainly weren't responsible for their actions), but we also see volunteer cleanup operations and civilian reporters using the exact same methods to communicate.
In other words: the technology is benign, the users are the ones who control how it's used. When has Mike or anyone else here said otherwise?
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And now the original cause that sparked riots is lost.
Here's what a bit of reading the Guardian found:
Police stopped a minicab to make a "pre-planned arrest". The suspect had phoned a pal about an hour before that "the feds" were following him. A gun in a sock was allegedly found at the scene. A police radio stopped a bullet from hitting a "police marksman", almost certainly from a police gun, not the suspect's. Two shots were initially called a "firefight". No evidence that suspect fired any bullets. No answers were given to a group representing the guy's family.
SO as a prior subway incident, wasn't just a random encounter requiring split-second decision. Police in large numbers were tailing the guy and chose when to make the arrest. My bet is was a sting all along. -- The details on the incident are few, but that's why it looks so much like an execution and people are enraged. -- I'm not saying that criminals haven't taken advantage of it or that rioting was a good idea, BUT there is an underlying real cause that's been lost.
By the way, note that the serfs of England aren't allowed to have firearms.
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Re: And now the original cause that sparked riots is lost.
Unfortunately most of the sheeple in the US are all to willing to give theirs up as well.
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Re: Re: And now the original cause that sparked riots is lost.
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Re: Re: Re: And now the original cause that sparked riots is lost.
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Re: Re: Re: And now the original cause that sparked riots is lost.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: And now the original cause that sparked riots is lost.
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Re: And now the original cause that sparked riots is lost.
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I feel a little guilty . . .
Clearly, through the use of advanced magnetic technology used to spin the cylinders of my external hard drive, my connection to the internet, and the inevitable reverberation of my actions throughout the world, I am completely to blame.
I'm sorry.
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People are not going out to the streets and venting their frustrations because they are happy, people don't mass together in large groups because they are greedy.
We told them, this was going to happen at some point and people didn't listen, we told them there was and underlying frustration growing with how people perceive the government and they dismissed as nothing, now you get what you get and people think that the organization is dependent on the means of communication?
Well try to do like Egypt, Iran, Syria and China and cut out the communication it won't stop the violence.
Long gone are the days the government could do things and get away with wrong doing or trying to defend their institutions on the face of suspicious behavior, they shot and killed somebody and nobody seems to want to show what happened, although the police in the U.K. can be polite they are also ruthless, anybody who saw them knows that, just saying the police didn't do anything wrong is not enough, the government broke the trust people had on them and it appears it doesn't want to try to regain it back but to say that everything is fine.
"Nothing to see here, move along!" is no acceptable anymore.
They will need to do better then that if they don't want to have to deal with that kind of crap every year.
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Don't blame it on the Technology
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Shutting off services
Even if it was possible in a less-controlling country, ya think that might just make things worse?
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/the-internet-was-acting-weird/
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They were told this was coming, they have been warned that people were getting frustrated and yet they did nothing to repair that image, they continued as if nothing needed to change, well there you got the answer from inside society.
Not that I condone that crap, I think those people are idiots, they should instead use their anger to construct the tools that would really make a difference, like networks of people that come together to write their own laws and elect those who would pass those laws.
But I do understand that a culture of violence from the government has shown some that violence is ok, killing someone and hiding all the details from the public that demanded to know what happened probably was not the best idea.
The reason "really inflamatory(auto-correct: inflammatory), inaccurate" messages on Twitter" happens is because people don't trust them anymore and the government apparently don't want to own up to its own mistakes.
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Disagree
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Ummmm
Though all I could see was one giant blaze, so I'm assuming it all went by land?
Terrible joke using a badly connected event, Yay internet.
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Here's more info on the Sun & other UK rags attacks on the technology:
from International Business Times:
UK Media: Riots Fueled by BlackBerry, Facebook, and Twitter
UK newspapers The Daily Mail and The Sun have both gone on record blaming Twitter for enabling or escalating the violence that exploded in UK's Tottenham area over the weekend. The Daily Mail "fears that violence was fanned by Twitter " and referred to the looting as a "Twitter riot" in one photograph's caption...
What none of these stories go so far as to say is that mobile technology and social media are common factors creating an uncomfortable resemblance between criminal riots and the kinds of demonstrations that marked the Arab Spring uprisings. While the difference between a protest and a riot may be largely a matter of whether or not one identifies with the ruling political administration, it is undeniable that the unique features of social media and wireless technology make both types of mass action more effective.
This would certainly not be the first time that The Sun and The Daily Mail have used technology as a handy scapegoat to appeal to an older, conservative, and/ or technologically illiterate readership. Of course, all three of the media companies mentioned have a significant presence on Twitter and Facebook -- and it's worth betting that they count a number of BlackBerry users among their (voice mail hacking?) employees.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/194883/20110809/uk-media-riots-fueled-by-blackberry-fa cebook-and-twitter.htm
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double speech
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Re: double speech
There's no 'so called' about it, these African disputes/Riots (in various African countries not just Egypt) are the result of the public wanting the end of 30 and 40 year dictatorships.
Though I agree, the west are incredibly quick to jump in if they think they will be fiscully rewarded.
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That Gaddafi fella is a riot!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8694505/UK-riots-Gaddafi-calls-on-David-Camer on-to-step-down-over-rioting.html
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