By Mickey Friedman
August 16, 2011
11 Year Old Alleged Rioter on his way to court in Essex - Photo: Geoff Pugh
Interesting new developments from the riots across the sea. Amidst the calls to curtail the use of social media – and the arrests of a few Facebook posters and Blackberry instant messengers for incitement – comes the case of the Tweeting Bobbie. The rioters took advantage of the new technology to communicate, and it was Tory Member of Parliament Louise Mensch, who urged that instant messaging and tweets be suspended during riots:
“If riot info and fear is spreading by Facebook and Twitter, shut them off for an hour or two, then restore. World won’t implode,” she said.
If you remember, David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, he of the compassionate Conservatism and friend to the Murdochs, just happened to be out of town when the rioters first struck. Along with his Home Secretary. But once back he lost no time casting blame: on moral decay and the morally-decayed, the rioters and their parents, or the lack thereof, and the slacking police, too slow, too permissive, perhaps?
And, then, looking to turn things around, Cameron reached across the Pond to ask one of U.S. of A’s most famous police chiefs, William Bratton, to help solve what clearly had become the U.K.’s new crime problem.
