Fighting Talk

It’s been tested in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria, to name just a few. And finally the folks of England have had their own jolly good test of how well social media works. The result is that social media is highly social.

We’ve had last-minute organised riots across London, Birmingham, Manchester, even Gloucester, for goodness sake. It seems that geography across England is not a problem for social media access. And judging from the people who have been interviewed in the media, I don’t think we need to worry about any underclass not having access to the same communication tools – it seems that people were fairly represented.

Of course no-one ever said that Twitter, Facebook and the likes were only for the use of good. Fast communication methods can be used for all purposes – great news for the criminally minded. But also useful for more community-oriented masses, which our current crisis has also flushed out into the spotlight. The clean-up operations going on in all affected localities are a good way to warm your heart and remind you that humanity still exists – in this case a humanity that is largely organised via the web.

Of course, what’s not yet clear is whether the rest of the UK is as digitally connected. But maybe someone can think of a more suitable method for finding out the answer.