It was very interesting watching the London riots on Twitter. It swiftly became apparent that the rioters were a “smallish” collection of criminally-minded youth. There was no larger “vision” that they were after other than material gain and thrills. The police initially did not disrupt the swarm well, and it gathered steam. By the third day it was taking a great deal more effort to disrupt.
Yet there were also localized counterswarms protecting places of value: for example, Jews and Muslims banding together to protect synagogues and mosques. (I have not seen reports of the protection of churches but I’m sure it happened.)
In the aftermath of the riots, there are now swarms of people who are cleaning up.
For those interested check out the following searches on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23londonriots
http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23londoncleanup
http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23riotcleanup
See also
- Matthew Ingram, “Network effects: social media’s role in the London Riots,” GigaOm.
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