Social networking is anti-social

The London riots has led to the first ever conviction against an individual for setting up of a page on facebook.

In fact, two individuals were sentenced to 4-years imprisonment for setting up two respective facebook pages. Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were handed the toughest sentences by the judges so far in the riot cases.

Blackshaw created an event on the site entitled 'Smash Down Northwich Town,' while Sutcliffe-Keenan used facebook to encourage a riot. Clearly not their most sanguine nor sane moment for two men who have been reported to have “both being of previous good character” by the media.

The judges probably hadn't read a recent report by a psychology professor of an American university on the affects of social networking on teens, otherwise they might have been a bit more lenient... of course they would also have to believe in passing the buck!

Lynchin' and be heard

There is much commonality at the core between the current riots in London and a incident of mob violence that occurred in Noakhali, Bangladesh.

True the extent of damages and the fatalities in the UK are much graver than that in Bangladesh – which left only one person dead. However, both incidents pay homage to the atrocities of police indifference and a long marginalised and under served populace.

The incident in Noakhali where a young man, labeled a 'robber' by the police, was dragged out of the police van by the police themselves to allow for mob justice (while they watched from the sidelines), seems little more than mindless violence and a increasingly recurring moment that shows that there is a very thin line between the humane and and the brutal.