As riots continue to grip London and captivate the world, social media platforms are once again providing to spectators a close and constant look into the unfortunate saga as it unfolds.
As the London riots enter their 4th day, Twitter traffic has exploded across the United Kingdom.
On August 8th, for example, 1 in every 170 UK Internet visits was claimed by Twitter, according to Hitwise. A whopping 3.4 million people from the UK landed on Twitter’s homepage August 9th.
“Politicians and the public have no idea why this is happening”, former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said yesterday. What is clear, however, is that technology has played a crucial part in these riots — on both polar opposites of the spectrum.
But as Zack Whittaker of ZDNet reported Wednesday, Twitter is not only populated by those condemning the violence and reporting outbreaks of sporadic looting and disorder, “but is also being used by those to gloat about their own criminal activity.”
Twitter, in style true to its company ethos, will not close the accounts of those using the site in such a way. Facing criticism over this decision, Twitter insisted, resonating much the same feeling written in a previous blog post, that tweets must flow.
