In the recent Arab revolts that brought down dictator regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter received brownie points for the positive role that they played. On the contrary, in the current London riots, micro-blogging site Twitter and video sharing site YouTube are being questioned on their roles and utility.
News headlines in the broadcast and print media proclaimed that social media was fueling the riots. A lack of actual knowledge of the term ‘social media’ was also responsible for this opinion which is evident from the following statement by a BBC News Reporter – “social media is influencing the speed, style of writing. Opportunists are exploiting social media network sites to start riots.” He continues, “rioters are using Blackberry BBM to support looting for trainers and mobile phones.” What he failed to understand is that Blackberry Messenger is an instant messaging app just for BlackBerry smartphone owners and does not qualify as social media.
BlackBerry’s U.K. arm immediately took to Twitter to distance itself, at least slightly, from its own alleged customers.
“We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can,” the company said on its Twitter feed.
There have been other instances of mis-reporting. To quote an example, Daily Mail reported that one tweet read: “‘I hear Tottenham’s going coco-bananas right now. Watch me roll.” This suggests the poster, called AshleyAR, was ready to punch and riot. Yet the Mail, reportedly managed to omit the last part of the tweet. It actually read: “Watch me roll up with a spud gun.”
The social media lashing received support from the deputy assistant commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, Steve Kavanagh, who reportedly stated that “really inflammatory, inaccurate” Twitter postings were, in large part, the cause of riots that have seen several areas of London ablaze and residents of two London districts told to leave their homes. “Social media and other methods have been used to organize these levels of greed and criminality,” he allegedly told a press conference. He also reportedly declared that those who posted such messages risked arrest.
Cnet believes that Twitter, if responsible for anything, it is for being a platform where wisdom and garbage was being disseminated at the same time. For the hashtag #stoprioting, it had a counteracting #LondonRiots.
On a positive note there was a poster Lulu Rose which declared: “The Youth of the Middle East rise up for basic freedoms. The Youth of London rise up for a HD ready 42” Plasma TV #londonriots.”
A Tweeter offered Cnet a link to a YouTube video from Sky News wherein a looter responded to a reporter’s query with “Getting back my taxes.”
Wombles to the rescue of social media credit:whycommunicate.co.uk
WhyCommunicate.co.uk. is of the opinion that YouTube which was being utilized to upload videos of events and Twitter would act as a support rather than hinder the legal process. It posts, “In the middle of all of this social media is being used in a very positive way via the usage of twitter accounts such as @riotcleanup which has utilized the inspirational #riotwombles hashtag to gather the people of London together to aid the clean up process. Social media is helping not causing the problem.” It believes that if Twitter was used for negative purposes,it was few and far between, not enough to justify the blanket blame on the social media.
All of the above makes it clear that technology is what we make of it. Likewise, technology enabled social media is a neutral tool and it is up to us to give it a positive or a negative purpose.
