Social media's role in the London riots

Technology may have been a potent tool used by London rioters in mobilizing their numbers, but it may very well be the same tool that will take them down. The UK Metropolitan Police on Tuesday opened up their stream on photo storage site Flickr and uploaded several CCTV images of suspected criminals and alleged looters, calling on the public to provide them with information should to identify any of the individuals in the photos. In what they call "Operation Withern," police said they will be releasing photographs of suspects as the investigation of the crime progresses. "If anyone recognises individuals in the photographs or has any information about the violence and disorder that has occurred they should contact the Major Investigation Team," the police said. Some of the photos uploaded on the account include those of several men wearing hooded jackets and scarves over their mouths, forcibly entering one shop. Another photo showed a woman in a tank top, whom the police said "carried items from Richer Sounds," one of the shops in the area. In another photo, a young man is seen carrying handfuls of jewelry from on of the shops in Church Road. About 15 similar images depicting looters and rioters were uploaded by the police to the photo set on Tuesday. In a similar effort, technology blog TechCrunch said a new Google Group has sprung up aiming to use facial recognition technology to identify the looters appearing in photos spreading online. "The group appears to be thoughtfully considering its actions, in threads titled 'Ethical Issues,' and 'Keeping Things Legal,' for example. They’ve also stated that 'it’s important we only use legal sources for images'," the blog said. One commenter in the group reportedly suggested using Face.API, a tool which could help identify people in photos posted on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. While the online group remains largely inaccessible to the public, a brief description of the group on the sign-up page reads: "The police are giving us access to CCTV images of the rioters and looters. Let's use existing technology like facial recognition and social networks proactively to help the justice process happen a little quicker." Mapping the riots Other enterprising Internet users, meanwhile, took it upon themselves to collate location information on where the riots took place and plotted them on the map, with an objective of warning citizens to avoid such areas and ensure their safety. One tool, called the London Riots Map, is collating user tweets that have the #londonriots hashtag as well as a mention of a UK postcode. Most reports plotted on the map are concentrated near the area of Tottenham, where most incidents of violence originally broke out, but a number of the tweets posted now are for calls to help those affected by the early riots in the area. One tweet, however, reported people with petrol bombs in the area at the vicinity of the Islington district near midnight on Monday. The UK newspaper The Guardian is running a similar map effort, which plots every verified incident of rioting spreading across the UK: The Guardian's map shows that a lot of incidents occurred in the capital of London, but newer reports plotted on the map suggest that the throes of violence is quickly reaching further beyond London and into Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester. The world pitches in Trends analytics site Trendistic reports that the hashtag #londonriots, which is being used by social media users to report about the violent incidents, has started gaining steam and even peaking on Tuesday morning, representing some 2.63 percent of all the tweets sent out during that period. In the same manner, the hashtag #prayforlondon has become the top trending topic in the Philippines by Wednesday noon as Twitter users send out their words of concern and calls for help for those severely affected by the violence. — TJD, GMA News