Twitter and the riots

23/08/2011 3:24 pm

If you think Housing has an important role in promoting community cohesion and social inclusion, and I do, then those who work in Housing need to keep their finger on the pulse of the communities they serve.

The social media ( tweeting and facebook) are one way of " listening in" as well as a way of engaging with young people. Half of those appearing before the courts for looting and rioting have been juveniles.
 
The Police clearly did monitor social networking sites once they realised rioters were using them as a means of co ordinating their activities.

No doubt there are those who work in housing,youth work and community work who have seen the tensions rising and realised it wouldn't take much to ignite an explosion of violence but most people including the police were caught off guard when it happened. And it's not clear why it happened in some places not others for instance in Birmingham but not Sheffield.   
 
It may have been copy cat criminality, opportunism and thrill seeking but for a small but significant minority higher education is not an option, lengthy period of unemployment seem the most likely prospect, poor housing seems inevitable and a stable family life may be difficult to achieve.

These are not new problems every generation has minority groups who are at risk of exclusion but in times of economic hard ship and high unemployment their numbers are swollen.
 
We do have the answers, local youth projects, schemes designed to equip young people with the skills and confidence to improve their job prospects, steer them away from criminality and help them find somewhere to live. The trouble is that local authority funding and grants to voluntary groups who carry out this work have been cut in the current harsh financial climate.

The response of the media, politicians and the general public to scenes of violence and looting is to demand Robocop policing and harsh prison sentences not increased grants to youth organisations. Now that the initial shock and out rage has subsided I think those in Housing should add their weight to support both a restoration of police funding so that they have the resources to reasure communities and funding for youth services and employment initatives for young people.

23/08/2011 3:28 pm

I would have expected that housing organisations would have been in regular liaison with the Police and other appropriate agencies who would be advising them regarding the risk of civil unrest and would no doubt be using a range of information gathering techniques, including social media, to determine those areas of risk.

24/08/2011 12:14 pm

Love it or hate it, social media is a massive industry which should not be ignored. Whilst it is an effective tool for keeping people informed, exchanging views and information, it can also be used in a negative way as we have seen recently.
 
Although, some social landlords use social media for the purposes I have described, I am not aware of any having used it in the way you suggest. I would be interested to hear if any social landlord has used it in this way. I do not think it is the role of social landlords to use social network sites to gather 'intelligence', nor do I think they can reasonably be expected to do so.

Even the police with their specialist skills in gathering and analysing intelligence were unable to anticipate what happened. No doubt the police will be monitoring social network sites much more closely in future for intelligence gathering and crime prevention. In my view, such activity should be left to the experts.

24/08/2011 3:47 pm

To try and answer your question directly I understand that most of the social media communication used was BBM, or Blackberry messaging.
The interresting thing about BBM is that it is relatively well encrypted and, I understand is a lot more secure in that sense, than other
messaging/texting formats. So in this instance it would have been difficult for housing organisations to track.
BBM also has the advantage that it can 'broadcast' to lots of people whereas Twitter is a bit more random. Even if landords had the staff
to monitor these sites their first port of call would be the Police, who will probably be doing the job a lot better than us non experts! The Facebook 'rioters' who were charged last week, didnt, I gather,  manage to get anyone to join in! so not sure that monitoring Facebook
even if possible, seems a good idea. I think it is likely that the Police will become more adept at monitoring the social media in future and may be
more able to let landlords know about possible upcoming flashpoints. Certainly they should have been more aware of the potential for community consternation they caused in Tottenham.