Londoners Turn to Technology to Stop the Looting. The violence in London has gotten pretty bad.
Monday was the third straight night of rioting in Britain's capital, as the unrest spread to other major cities like Liverpool and Birmingham. Entire stores are losing their inventory--a Sony warehouse burned to the ground and an Adidias shop looked completely empty after being ransacked--and police so far have been powerless to stop the looting. The number of officers will rise from Monday night's 6,000 to 16,000 on Tuesday, but in the meantime, Londoners are doing their best to tidy up their city.
And just as it powered the rioters' mobilization, technology is powering clean up effort as well. London Riots: Social Media Mobilizes Riot Cleanup. After days of riots in London, thousands of Londoners and worldwide supporters are taking to social networks to help reclaim the streets of London.
While rioters took to the underground paths of BlackBerry Messenger to organize, the highly spreadable mediums of Twitter and Facebook have shown to be the perfect platforms for mobilizing cleanup organizers and followers in the early aftermath of the rioting. For the most part, organization has been very smooth, with a few key hubs across social platforms taking root. The @RiotCleanup Twitter page has amassed more than 50,000 followers in fewer than 10 hours and is consistently broadcasting cleanup locations and times, along with other pertinent information regarding the initiative. On Facebook, a similar page has emerged as the central location for information on the world's largest social network. And for a more static look at where the action is, riotcleanup.co.uk is being constantly updated with cleanup location information. Twitter and Facebook users arrange London riot clean-up.
9 August 2011Last updated at 15:46 Hundreds of people turned out at Clapham Junction to tidy up A massive clean-up operation is getting under way in areas affected by the riots across England.
