Over the last few days, the city of London has seen some of the worst acts of peacetime violence and disorder, and unfortunately rioting and looting show no signs of stopping soon. In fact, disturbances have occurred in other cities, such as Birmingham, Nottingham and Liverpool, as trouble spreads further across the country in worrying fashion.
The events were triggered by the fatal shooting by police of 29-year-old Mark Duggan in Tottenham on Thursday night, although the motives for the behaviour in other locations appear unconnected.
As with any still developing, frightening and dramatic news story, the media has had its work cut out. Understanding the reasons why rioters have taken to the streets is a highly complex task that will take time and resources to achieve, but this hasn't stopped most British news organisations and several high profile politicians from already placing the blame on social media.
First it was Twitter. The Daily Mail was particularly harsh on the site, even going so far as to caption a picture with "Twitter riot: A red London double decker bus burns". The paper also published edited quotes from Twitter, such as one from @AshleysAr that read, "I hear Tottenham's going coco-bananas right now. Watch me roll", despite originally being posted with the additional words "with a spud gun".
Second on the media's hit list was BlackBerry, and in particular its instant messaging tool BBM. BBM has been cited as the most commonly used tool amongst rioters in the co-ordination of their activities, forcing BlackBerry manufacturers Research In Motion to announce that they will cooperate fully with police investigations.
The notion that social networks are somehow responsible for the actions of human beings is, of course, more than a little absurd. The format of 24-hour news and our understandable hunger for some reason at such a confusing time has caused the spreading of this misconception.
Twitter, BBM, Facebook, SMS and all the other forms of communication are merely tools. If people weren't using them to organise riots then they would simply be using another platform, so it is foolish to blame social networks as the cause of the events in recent days.
Movements like Twitter's Riot Clean Up and Facebook's Operation Cup Of Tea have also illustrated the good that social networks can do, and proved that the majority of social network users are opposed to the riots.
Here at ClareMackenzie.com, we've set up the Riot Relief UK campaign on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. It's designed to be a platform for businesses affected by the riots to explain what they need to get back on their feet and allow others to offer their products and services to help. We hope it will be just another example of the good that can come from social networks.
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