Londoners Use Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr To ‘Catch Rioters’
August 10, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
Police post photos of rioters on Flickr in an appeal for further information.
For opportunistic folks who used social media tools to find and jump into recent rioting and looting in London, those same tools could be used to nab them soon enough.
Londoners sickened by the violence gripping their city are using technology to fight back against this weekend’s surge of local criminality. Police and local residents in the U.K.’s capital have been taking advantage of the proliferation of smartphone cameras and using sites like Facebook, Tumblr and Flickr to post photos of thugs who joined in looting sprees in London in recent days in order to help bring them to justice.
One anonymous individual has set up catchalooter.tumblr.com, posting people’s photos of looters who no doubt thought they had avoided closed-circuit television cameras. Admittedly, most of the photos posted so far don’t show much of the culprits’ faces, but the site can at least act as a repository for those who’ve nabbed photos of miscreants. “This site does not support vigilante action,” the site says, “merely using social media to collate all images in one place.”
A Facebook page has also been set up, “Let’s catch the London 2011 rioters and looters,” where people can also post photos or videos of looting.
And the Metropolitan police have used Flickr to post photos of suspected rioters and looters in places like West Norwood and Croydon. The police need a simple repository for photos in what will likely be the biggest single criminal investigation for some time.
The Met police said earlier today that last night was the “worst [it had] seen in current memory for the unacceptable levels of widespread looting, fires and disorder.”
