Wednesday Caption

We got a great response last week from our Wednesday Caption, mostly from Colin in Shepherd's Rest Pub in Draperstown, Northern Ireland.  My favourite of his was "family crossed the road to take a photo."

I felt as though I had to be topical this week with the senseless looting happening across England right now but I thought I'd focus on the more positive side of what has come out of all of this e.g. with people using social media to come together for the good of the community.

@riotcleanup was set up on Twitter and has attracted over 87k followers in just over 24 hours. In this short space of time the account is responsible for having brought together cleaning teams all across London and now across other parts of the UK affected by the rioting.

So please give me your captions below. And if you have any images of the culprits be sure to report them. (Read this for more on that.)

Footnote: I have just written up this blog post Social Media: Good Or Evil? The Other Side Of The UK Riots which may be of interest.

Image by belkus

"Social Media Blamed For London Riots"

Social media hit the headlines today for the wrong reasons in this instance it is being blamed for the orchestration of riots that have dotted around London. Referring to the rioters Nick de Bois, Conservative politician for Enfield North said on BBC's Radio 4 program "They're organised. They're playing around on the social media." Sounds like it's more than playing M. de Bois.

After John Humphrys accused Deputy Assistant Commissioner Steve Kavanagh of the police being flat-footed Kavanagh then confessed that "We have got to recognise that social media and other types of methods were used and we need to adapt and to learn from these experiences." For me a greater headline would be "Police Confess That They Are Behind The Times," rather than "Social Media Blamed For London Riots" which is what is being used around the different news sites currently.

Image by Beacon Radio

These riots occurred after a man called Mark Duggan was shot dead after a police operation to arrest him. A protest took place on Saturday which was out to try to get answers. Eventually when the police did not offer any explanation this turned into rioting in Tottenham area. By Sunday the riots were occurring in different parts of London. And Mr Humphrys was alleging that people were using Twitter to organise where to go and where to then move on to when the timing was right.

I have some questions around this. 

1. Was the rioting on Saturday orchestrated on Twitter:
   1. By people who were angered by the lack of explanation from the police or
   2. By people who just hate cops and wanted to riot or
   3. By people who just wanted to do some looting?
2. How was the rioting orchestrated via Twitter? 
   1. Did someone come up with a hashtag and people started using it - if so what was it - or was a bogus account set up and people started following it?
3. Was Twitter the main tool of choice? 
4. Was Facebook not used?
5. Is Google+ not a better tool as it could make detection more difficult.
6. How were the riots of 1995 and 1985 so devastating without the use of social media?

The upside of using Twitter for rioting is that it's great to plan your next area for wreaking havoc. The downside is that it leaves an audit trail for every commuication. Another effective headline might have been "Social media can be used to find rioters." (That might be the headline in a few weeks time when the penny drops.) 

Meanwhile if you can answer any of my questions I'd really appreciate it. Thank you kindly.

Footnote: Please read my follow up "Social Media Blamed For Catching Rioters"