Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you hey there, Text Stuff listeners, This
Speaker 1: is Jonathan Strickland and I have got a request for
Speaker 1: all of you. Now, Chris and I have decided that
Speaker 1: we're going to try and experiment. We're doing our first
Speaker 1: crowd sourced episode of tech Stuff and we want to
Speaker 1: know what your pick is for the worst video game
Speaker 1: of all time. Now, nominations you can. You can make
Speaker 1: one nomination. You nominate one game, and you need to
Speaker 1: tell us the name of the game and the platform
Speaker 1: it was on. And it could be any platform. It
Speaker 1: could be an arcade game, it could be a PC, Mac, Xbox,
Speaker 1: PS three, Nintendo handheld console. It can be web based
Speaker 1: if you like. But just you let us know what
Speaker 1: the platform is so we can make sure we count
Speaker 1: that as the votes. So you can nominate your game
Speaker 1: either through email, which is tech Stuff at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com, or you can nominate through Twitter or Facebook.
Speaker 1: And we're gonna put a cut off date on this.
Speaker 1: I want to have the episode go up by the
Speaker 1: end of September of eleven. So let's say you need
Speaker 1: to get your nominations in by September eleven, So if
Speaker 1: you get those nominations into us, we will make sure
Speaker 1: we include those in the process and we will have
Speaker 1: an episode where we give you the worst video games
Speaker 1: of all time based upon the votes of our listeners.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot. Can't wait to hear from you. Get
Speaker 1: in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hello, everyone, welcome to tex Stuff. My
Speaker 1: name is Chris Poulette and I am an editor at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com sitting in a a cross from
Speaker 1: me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland. You just
Speaker 1: call out my name and you know wherever I am,
Speaker 1: I'll come running a yes. So that's sort of pertinent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pertinent to our discussion. But before we get into it,
Speaker 1: let's start off with a little listener mail. This listener
Speaker 1: mail comes from Michael, who says, Hi, Chris and Jonathan,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to your podcast for about seven months
Speaker 1: and enjoy them immensely, and I figured I should write
Speaker 1: in to not only tell you this, but also suggest
Speaker 1: an idea for a podcast topic. I'm writing this email
Speaker 1: on the day after more riots in London and as
Speaker 1: I watched the Rolling News coverage I keep hearing people
Speaker 1: suggesting that social media was integral to the way the
Speaker 1: looting and violence played out. They say Twitter is being
Speaker 1: used to plan and suggest places to go and loot,
Speaker 1: and that BlackBerry messengers being used to privately distribute this
Speaker 1: info to hundreds of people at a time, as is
Speaker 1: the way with the mainstream media. They're quick to jump
Speaker 1: to conclusions that only social media could have possibly caused
Speaker 1: these displays of thuggery and violence, and forget the fact
Speaker 1: that social media can be used for both harm and
Speaker 1: for good. In recent months, the Arab Spring has similar commentary.
Speaker 1: Twitter has been blocked in certain countries and many rallies
Speaker 1: have been organized using only Twitter. What do you guys
Speaker 1: make of this? As social media been as integral as
Speaker 1: everyone is saying it has been, What about in the
Speaker 1: days before social media? What tech was used back then
Speaker 1: to organize protests and uprisings? Is all of this in
Speaker 1: urban myth? I hope you'll be able to explain this
Speaker 1: to all of us peaceful tech stuff listeners. Thanks for
Speaker 1: all the fun, Michael. Michael, we are going to talk
Speaker 1: about technology and its role in the recent London and
Speaker 1: well really riots across the United Kingdom. UM. And by recent,
Speaker 1: I mean we are recording this in early August of
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, So as of the recording of this podcast,
Speaker 1: there are still disturbances in the UK that are related
Speaker 1: to these riots and hopefully they will be resolved soon. UM. Yeah. UM.
Speaker 1: Of course we have brought up similar topics UM in
Speaker 1: the past. We talked about how Twitter was being used
Speaker 1: in Iran UM to help people communicate with one another.
Speaker 1: I think we also mentioned Egypt, Egypt, Yep and UM
Speaker 1: and some of the other countries to where people were
Speaker 1: using social media fit specifically Facebook and Twitter UM to
Speaker 1: help them organize their efforts. UM. And I would I
Speaker 1: would say that, I mean it's it's certainly in those cases.
Speaker 1: I mean even the United States government sort of gotten involved,
Speaker 1: UM because supporting UM the efforts of people to use
Speaker 1: these services right right. As a matter of fact, Twitter
Speaker 1: was planning on going undergoing some maintenance and taking down
Speaker 1: the service UM following the Iranian elections and their unrest
Speaker 1: that followed the protests, and the Obama administration requested that
Speaker 1: they hold off on that maintenance. Yes, yes, which Twitter
Speaker 1: agreed to do. UM. I would say that integral might
Speaker 1: be kind of a strong word. I might say that
Speaker 1: it that that using these technology ease um may have
Speaker 1: been integral to the way they were carried out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the We have to separate the reasons for the
Speaker 1: unrest and the methodology they used to carry it out.
Speaker 1: We have to separate those two things, because the technology
Speaker 1: did not cause these riots. And in fact, to to
Speaker 1: try and sum up what these riots were caused by
Speaker 1: in a sound bite or two is doing it a
Speaker 1: terrible disservice. The first of all, I cannot even pretend
Speaker 1: to understand the full social and political culture in the
Speaker 1: UK that kind of led up to this event. We
Speaker 1: we know, of course that the precipitating event was the
Speaker 1: the the death of a man at the hands of
Speaker 1: the police, the Metropolitan London Police UM, and that that
Speaker 1: kind of was the spark that started everything. But the
Speaker 1: riots of course far out a clip that initial event,
Speaker 1: and it's clear, or at least it appears to be clear,
Speaker 1: that the motivations behind the people who are carrying out
Speaker 1: these riots have little if anything to do with that spark.
Speaker 1: I get the sense that some of the rioters may
Speaker 1: have had that event in mind um when they started,
Speaker 1: but that other people may just be rioting to loot,
Speaker 1: use it as an excuse to loot. And this happens
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases when there is rioting. So
Speaker 1: I I don't think everyone's motivation for participating is the same.
Speaker 1: I think what you have is you have a population
Speaker 1: of people who feel uh, some sort of deep resentment
Speaker 1: and anger which even they may not even be necessarily
Speaker 1: conscious of, or they may be unable to articulate that. Uh.
Speaker 1: They some of them have been articulating their their feelings
Speaker 1: towards the media, but in ways that seem maybe disingenuous
Speaker 1: or at least it's it's hard to connect the feelings
Speaker 1: with the actions, right because the actions we're talking about
Speaker 1: in London in the UK in general are more about
Speaker 1: very destructive behavior about looting, and the targets for this
Speaker 1: behavior tend to be small businesses, family owned businesses. We're
Speaker 1: not talking about institutions, right because you would say that, well,
Speaker 1: this is a if this is truly a political statement,
Speaker 1: then you would think you would target institutions that represent
Speaker 1: whatever the opposing ideology is, right, Like if you were
Speaker 1: going to attack say Parliament to represent the government, or
Speaker 1: the police station because you didn't like the police right,
Speaker 1: or or large banks because that represents the government as well.
Speaker 1: Then you you know that then you could argue, well,
Speaker 1: that's a very or at least a clearer political statement
Speaker 1: than attacking a family owned, community based business. In that case,
Speaker 1: what saying is that, well, we have rioters who are
Speaker 1: attacking businesses within their own community, so they are ultimately
Speaker 1: hurting their own community. This is not pushing forward any
Speaker 1: sort of political ideology. This looks more like an example
Speaker 1: of someone who desires certain things in their life that
Speaker 1: they otherwise are unable to to obtain, and they're taking
Speaker 1: the opportunity of chaos to slip in and grab those things.
Speaker 1: So we're getting really philosophical here, but it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, um, one of the great discussions I've seen
Speaker 1: online kind of talked about how we have created this
Speaker 1: this UH environment of consumerism. Right, consumerism is considered something
Speaker 1: that's a good thing, you know, beck when after the
Speaker 1: the nine eleven UH tragedy here in the United States,
Speaker 1: we had government officials saying the best thing we can
Speaker 1: do is go out there and business as usual, go
Speaker 1: out and buy stuff, I mean by things. Was definitely
Speaker 1: part of the strategy to continue to combat this terrorism,
Speaker 1: which is saying that consumerism is like a foundation of
Speaker 1: what our society is right now. So we have promoted
Speaker 1: this idea that to make your life better, you should
Speaker 1: go out and buy stuff. And I'm not saying whether
Speaker 1: or not that's good or bad. I'm not passing judgment
Speaker 1: on that. Because I'm a consumer. I have lots of
Speaker 1: things that uh that if you were to step outside
Speaker 1: and be objective, you'd say, all right, that's a luxury,
Speaker 1: that's not a that's not something you have to have, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've got those things. I've got some of
Speaker 1: them sitting in front of me. Um. But the promotion
Speaker 1: of consumerism to a a population of people who don't
Speaker 1: have the the income to spend on that consumerism can
Speaker 1: create a level of frustration and anger and greed. You've
Speaker 1: got these people who are being told over and over again,
Speaker 1: buying this will make you happy, you know, owning this
Speaker 1: will make you a better person. That kind of mess
Speaker 1: and she gets put forth, and then they have no
Speaker 1: avenue where they can actually purchase said product, and then
Speaker 1: they have this opportunity to just take things and be
Speaker 1: part of this consumer uh environment. By passing the whole
Speaker 1: being you know, earning the money and purchasing things on
Speaker 1: your own, using your own money, that kind of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's the cause of the riots either.
Speaker 1: That's just one factor and it's such a complex issue
Speaker 1: that you can't boil it down to because of this
Speaker 1: this happened. It's far more complex. But I'm just that
Speaker 1: was just my way of pointing out that this is
Speaker 1: a really complicated problem. You can't just say, uh, oh,
Speaker 1: it's technology's fault, and you can't even say it's just
Speaker 1: the government's fault. There's so many I mean, there are
Speaker 1: personal choices that are involved here too. You can't you
Speaker 1: cannot absolve the rioters from personal responsibility either. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you can't just say, oh, these are
Speaker 1: these are bad people, because if you just say they're
Speaker 1: bad people, you're just missing them and you're ultimately saying
Speaker 1: this is always going to happen because some people are
Speaker 1: just bad. So you resolved yourself to future riots, you know,
Speaker 1: there's no solution there because you've just made a label. Well, um,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, my soapbox is getting a little unsteady livings
Speaker 1: step down here. So, so as far as technologies role. Um.
Speaker 1: You know that the web services that people are using,
Speaker 1: you know, Twitter and Facebook and and specifically smartphone BlackBerry.
Speaker 1: Um in this case, uh have been blamed by some
Speaker 1: in the media. I think, Um, but again, these technologies, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but these I mean, I think it's important, as Michael
Speaker 1: points out, to note that these these services are basically
Speaker 1: neither good nor evil. They're just tools that can be
Speaker 1: used for anything, right. Um. I mean in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, they're used to you know, communicate with friends
Speaker 1: or or you know, used for consumers to find new deals.
Speaker 1: That happens a lot on Twitter, especially you know, hey,
Speaker 1: uh mentioned this tweet and get a thing, or to
Speaker 1: disseminate news or to disseminate news. I mean, they can
Speaker 1: be used for all kinds of things. Um. They can
Speaker 1: also be used to communicate hate speech. Um. It's not
Speaker 1: the again, it's not the tools fault. Yeah, no, it's
Speaker 1: it's just it's just a medium of communication, right. So,
Speaker 1: and and in the uh um Iranian elections and the
Speaker 1: aftermath that followed, people were using uh these tools to
Speaker 1: organize themselves and stay a step ahead of the authorities
Speaker 1: who are trying to shut them down. So it was
Speaker 1: very much like a flash mob might be again another
Speaker 1: another something you can use these tools for that can
Speaker 1: be a lot of fun um. But they were using
Speaker 1: it basically to arrange to be in a certain place
Speaker 1: at a certain time. They would meet, you know, they
Speaker 1: would all take their own path to get there. They
Speaker 1: would meet, they would do a demonstration, and then they
Speaker 1: would leave to organize again in another location. And by
Speaker 1: the time the authorities were able to catch up with them,
Speaker 1: or they thought they would catch up with them, they
Speaker 1: were gone. The crowd. Crowd had dispersed, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, And they were getting their point
Speaker 1: across by getting a lot of media attention and and
Speaker 1: showing solidarity that they were also being very careful not
Speaker 1: to become an easy target, right right, And in the
Speaker 1: in this case, you know, a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the media said, this is a good thing. Look how
Speaker 1: advanced this is, and how this wouldn't have been when
Speaker 1: possible without it, And it really you would have had
Speaker 1: to have met with everyone and agreed to everything upfront.
Speaker 1: So no, technology is not essential to making this happen,
Speaker 1: but it does make it a whole lot easier. And
Speaker 1: that you again also raises the question of for for
Speaker 1: especially for countries where you have civil disobedience in response
Speaker 1: to some sort of oppressive government. However, you wanted to
Speaker 1: find that the question comes comes up like, well, why
Speaker 1: why now, right? Why does this happen now as opposed
Speaker 1: to ten years ago? And part of that is that
Speaker 1: technology has made it easier for people to organize these
Speaker 1: kind of protests and to communicate with one another and
Speaker 1: to get the word out so that the world at
Speaker 1: large knows what's going on. It's not just a regional thing.
Speaker 1: And so in a way you could say that technology
Speaker 1: has helped uh these sort of things happen, but again
Speaker 1: it's not it's just because technology is a tool that's
Speaker 1: been used, and it's not that the desire wasn't there
Speaker 1: ten years ago. It's just that maybe the opportunity was
Speaker 1: had a higher barrier to it, and so getting over
Speaker 1: that barrier was was what was preventing these sort of
Speaker 1: uh outbreaks of civil disobedience if you prefer, from happening. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these these tools are far more available to people now
Speaker 1: than they were in the pasture. Um So now in
Speaker 1: the case with the UK riots, that to differentiate them
Speaker 1: between those and the political uh protests that we've seen
Speaker 1: other places of the world. The big problem here is
Speaker 1: that a lot of the people who are who have
Speaker 1: been using these or at least the publicized uses of
Speaker 1: social media and blackberries and things like that, have been
Speaker 1: for people in the riots to coordinate attacks on certain businesses.
Speaker 1: So essentially, what happens is you've got a couple of
Speaker 1: people who are casing a place and they see that
Speaker 1: there's not a very strong police presence in a particular
Speaker 1: part of London, so they send out the word and
Speaker 1: in that word gets sent out wider and wider and wider,
Speaker 1: and then next thing you know, you've got a full,
Speaker 1: full blown riot on your hands. People breaking into those
Speaker 1: businesses because they know based on those messages that there's
Speaker 1: not a real police presence, so there's not there's not
Speaker 1: really much of a chance of getting caught, so they
Speaker 1: take the advantage of the situation and they break in
Speaker 1: and they looked essentially and uh, then you've got some
Speaker 1: people who go even further than that, who are burning buildings,
Speaker 1: which I can't even get into the psychology of that.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's so foreign to me that not only
Speaker 1: are you like, I don't understand the motivations behind it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's anger. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's just something else that is really indefinable and I
Speaker 1: can't pretend to understand. So I'm not really going to
Speaker 1: go into it. But at any rate, UM, you've got
Speaker 1: the the use of this technology to organize these uh
Speaker 1: and organizes really kind of kind of too strong a word.
Speaker 1: It's more like a call to arms saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: if you want free stuff, come here and break in
Speaker 1: and you can take it from this place. It's not
Speaker 1: really so much organizing as it is just uh snatching
Speaker 1: up an opportunity because the police are otherwise occupied and
Speaker 1: you've got a very mobile group out there. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are all for the most part, you know, if
Speaker 1: you see the news, they all talk about being youths.
Speaker 1: So they're young people, you know, in their teens and
Speaker 1: twenties mostly. I've I've heard some as young as ten.
Speaker 1: So you've got the yeah, young people who are in
Speaker 1: a city that has a lot of UH ways of
Speaker 1: getting around, particularly using the underground system that the tube. UM.
Speaker 1: So there's been talking about possibly shutting down just the
Speaker 1: the uh the cell networks around tube stations. So in
Speaker 1: other words, turning those towers off or shutting it down
Speaker 1: so that people can't communicate when they're near a tube station,
Speaker 1: because part of it is that, you know, they want
Speaker 1: to stay as mobile as possible so they can jump
Speaker 1: on the next opportunity. And if you you know, so,
Speaker 1: that means they're normally staying pretty close to the various
Speaker 1: tube stations in order to be able to get to
Speaker 1: whatever part of London is going to be the next target.
Speaker 1: And if you shut that down then you really kind
Speaker 1: of uh, the theory is that you would you would
Speaker 1: silence them. The same sort of thing with some of
Speaker 1: those social networks and the services. There's been some discussion
Speaker 1: in British government about what to do about the the
Speaker 1: text messaging and the BlackBerry messaging and and using social
Speaker 1: networks like Twitter and Facebook. What do you do about
Speaker 1: that and how do you stop those from being tools
Speaker 1: of destruction? And uh, there's a lot of debate on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was I was gonna say, let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the tools specifically, UM, Facebook and Twitter sort
Speaker 1: of no brainers, um, And they're easy for people to
Speaker 1: use there, they're available via smartphones and and all sorts
Speaker 1: of devices of course, UM, but they're not encrypted in
Speaker 1: any way. UM. So it's it's easy enough to post
Speaker 1: those messages, but it's also easy enough for people in
Speaker 1: law enforcement to keep their eyes on it. UM. In fact,
Speaker 1: I have seen some reports that went so far as
Speaker 1: to suggest that they believe that people were posting messages
Speaker 1: deliberately intended to mislead the authorities to going to another
Speaker 1: location and then the real target was somewhere else that
Speaker 1: they wanted to hit. UM, that the writers wanted to
Speaker 1: attack UM. And I just I don't know whether that's
Speaker 1: accurate or not. That was that that is a a
Speaker 1: uh you know, I thought that they had had at
Speaker 1: one point. And I just want to point out that
Speaker 1: Facebook has said that, you know, their policy is that
Speaker 1: they don't allow uh, hate speech or messages that condone
Speaker 1: violence or or our call to violence or anything like
Speaker 1: that on their network, so that if they, if anyone
Speaker 1: working for Facebook sees that, they will remove that post.
Speaker 1: So at least Facebook already is saying that, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: we don't need government intervention necessarily because we already do
Speaker 1: that this ourselves. So though one might wonder how effective
Speaker 1: that can be, I mean, how this that that raises
Speaker 1: another question that we'll get to in a minute about
Speaker 1: how viable would a solution be to to limit or
Speaker 1: shut down these social networking services. But that's we'll have
Speaker 1: to get into that discussion before, I mean, after we
Speaker 1: talk about all the different specific services, the most interesting
Speaker 1: one to me as the BlackBerry messenger. UM. Apparently, according
Speaker 1: to Offcom, Blackberries are more common phones among teens in
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom between the ages of thirteen and eighteen.
Speaker 1: It's more about thirty seven percent of kids have a BlackBerry. Now.
Speaker 1: I think it's funny because again, on many occasions, you
Speaker 1: and I have talked about how uh BlackBerry has been
Speaker 1: sort of left behind by other handset manufacturers and and
Speaker 1: operating system manufacturers, most specifically Android and Apple's iOS. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, even the Windows phone is more of a
Speaker 1: consumer device, so I don't think of the BlackBerry as
Speaker 1: being a consumer device. But apparently it is especially popular
Speaker 1: among this age group in the United Kingdom. And the
Speaker 1: reason this is interesting is simply because the BlackBerry, since
Speaker 1: it is intended originally to be uh an enterprise level
Speaker 1: basically a corporate messaging service. Um it's encrypted, so uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and you may not see that with the
Speaker 1: text messaging UM on your local phone or smartphone. So
Speaker 1: those messages are going over an encrypted private network Blackberries network,
Speaker 1: and therefore the police cannot see what these people who
Speaker 1: are using those devices are are saying. It could be
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, anything, but they could also be
Speaker 1: used for uh coordination of activities by people who are
Speaker 1: involved with the riots. So um, the the British government
Speaker 1: is particularly concerned about that. I have noticed, um, because
Speaker 1: they cannot see what's going on now. Apparently there are
Speaker 1: laws that say, um, you know they have said we
Speaker 1: are in London is a very camera heavy city. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: they're saying that, you know, we we can identify you,
Speaker 1: and we can see that you are involved with this
Speaker 1: and committing these acts. We will bring you to justice. Um.
Speaker 1: Apparently there are some laws that say that, um, they
Speaker 1: can't just subpoena all these messaging records without knowing in
Speaker 1: fact that it is that person up front, and then
Speaker 1: getting the phone records from that person to confirm whether
Speaker 1: or not he or she was involved. Seems kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: I know it's more complicated than that, but then you're
Speaker 1: you're you're you're arguing like that. The argument seems to be,
Speaker 1: you can't get the evidence that they did committed something
Speaker 1: unless you can prove that they committed something already, which
Speaker 1: is a catch twenty two, right, Um, unless you're just
Speaker 1: saying that you wanted more corroborating evidence and you already
Speaker 1: had plenty of evidence to start with, or the alternative
Speaker 1: as you can say, Well, how how strict is that
Speaker 1: if you get an accusation, is that enough for it
Speaker 1: to be to to get a request for the information? Because, uh,
Speaker 1: the way it's word it, it it sounds like you have
Speaker 1: to have more than just an accusation, because otherwise otherwise
Speaker 1: there's no there's no teeth to that at all, right right, um.
Speaker 1: And and apparently Research in Motion, which is the Canadian
Speaker 1: company that UH is behind the BlackBerry I said it
Speaker 1: will cooperate with authorities, which UH caused a group of
Speaker 1: hackers called Team Poison to UH take over the BlackBerry
Speaker 1: blog basically break in, and they posted a message saying
Speaker 1: that um if rim as Research in Motion is known
Speaker 1: popularly UH cooperates with the police, then they will, you know,
Speaker 1: stage an attack against. Team Poison also has a history
Speaker 1: with other anti sec hacker groups like Anonymous and lull
Speaker 1: sec Uh. They're in a way, they're almost like rivals
Speaker 1: to lull sec Um. That's kind of that's probably putting
Speaker 1: it a little too black and white. It's just like
Speaker 1: any of these groups. It's kind of hazy because I mean,
Speaker 1: the very each of the groups themselves are pretty crazy. Um.
Speaker 1: And to add on to this, the the idea that
Speaker 1: the government is looking into the possibility of of limiting
Speaker 1: or shutting down these services has gathered a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism early early on, and there are many reasons why
Speaker 1: the criticisms have been directed at this this potential route
Speaker 1: of action, which I should add, you know, the government
Speaker 1: never said that it was going to do this, is
Speaker 1: that it was looking at it, considering it, which means
Speaker 1: that they could have come to the same conclusions that
Speaker 1: everyone else has, or that a lot of the vocal
Speaker 1: opponents have come to. One of those is just that,
Speaker 1: you know, using this as a blanket approach means that
Speaker 1: you are are eliminating the social rights of innocent people.
Speaker 1: You know, if you were to just shut down these
Speaker 1: services and the all all across the board, then innocent
Speaker 1: people who have nothing to do with the riots would
Speaker 1: also have that avenue of communication taken away from them,
Speaker 1: and so that begins to raise a question of are
Speaker 1: you violating the civil rights of innocent people? Uh? If
Speaker 1: you are trying to identify people and block them based
Speaker 1: upon the identity, that raises the question of how how
Speaker 1: viable is this operation? Because one, you have to identify everyone,
Speaker 1: so that's a huge job. Two you have to block them,
Speaker 1: and then three you have to deal with the fact
Speaker 1: that there are ways around bands and being blocked their
Speaker 1: web proxies. They're changing your your IP address on your device,
Speaker 1: there using other services that weren't covered under the band
Speaker 1: in the first place. There's lots of different ways around it,
Speaker 1: and it's like playing whack a mole. You know, on
Speaker 1: the highest setting, you know, you knocked down one avenue
Speaker 1: of communication, in five more sprung up, So it may
Speaker 1: not even be viable unless again, unless you did an
Speaker 1: all or nothing kind of approach. But in that case,
Speaker 1: you're blanketing everyone. And then how do you respond to
Speaker 1: how do you make an emergency phone call? If they've
Speaker 1: shut down the cell phone system like it means that
Speaker 1: you've cut down the communication of everybody, so it may
Speaker 1: just not even be possible much less you can all
Speaker 1: argue the social reasons, but just the technological UH implementation
Speaker 1: is so complex that it may be off the board. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are just too many people, including the authorities, who
Speaker 1: are relying on these networks UM for that to be feasible.
Speaker 1: But I do want to before we get too far
Speaker 1: into it. These and this is illustrative of h of
Speaker 1: Michael's point to UM there are people who are using
Speaker 1: the exact same services to organize cleanup efforts or even
Speaker 1: to alert that there's trouble brewing. So in some cases
Speaker 1: it's it's some cases you have people who are using
Speaker 1: these same services saying, we need, you know, to bring
Speaker 1: attention to this because there's trouble coming this way. And
Speaker 1: then there's others who are saying, well, the troubles happened,
Speaker 1: let's organize a clean up effort to deal with the damages.
Speaker 1: And it's where you're getting that whole spirit of of
Speaker 1: London and Spirit of UK kind of thing coming out,
Speaker 1: where it's all these these community members banding together to
Speaker 1: rebuild the communities after the destructive riots, and and some
Speaker 1: of these riots have been yes, unthinkably destructive. I mean
Speaker 1: I look at the pictures and I'm thinking this looks
Speaker 1: like if you had shown this picture to me in
Speaker 1: black and white, I would have said, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: photo of London after the Blitz. I mean, that's how
Speaker 1: bad some of these communities have been hit. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I've seen it compared UM just on some of the
Speaker 1: people that I followed on social networks. You know, people
Speaker 1: have said that it's sort of in cleaning it up.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the spirit of the Blitz, like
Speaker 1: the you know, pushing back and and and helping clean
Speaker 1: up UM. One one article that I had read on
Speaker 1: the BBC news site UM mentioned Dan Thompson, who's an
Speaker 1: artist and U. He started a Twitter account called at
Speaker 1: riot clean Up UM, and Riot clean Up had when
Speaker 1: I first checked it out, more than eighty six thousand
Speaker 1: followers are down as of this recording to a little
Speaker 1: under about eighty five UM, which suggests to me that
Speaker 1: things may be quieting down a little bit. UM. But yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: and it had spawned other groups to to start their
Speaker 1: own riot clean ups and in other cities, not just
Speaker 1: in London, but people were talking about specific areas where
Speaker 1: UH people needed help UM cleaning up some of the
Speaker 1: mess and the rubble from UH you know, buildings that
Speaker 1: had been broken into and in some cases destroyed. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that generally what I had read was
Speaker 1: that efforts like this had made people feel like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the people a lot of it. Again, people
Speaker 1: that I've read um about on social media were very
Speaker 1: very disturbed and upset. Um, some going so far as
Speaker 1: to say that they were not very proud of their
Speaker 1: country because their uh, their countrymen were doing these things, um,
Speaker 1: which is a very sad statement. UM. But I think
Speaker 1: these kinds of things like the riot clean up account
Speaker 1: are doing a lot to help people feel like they
Speaker 1: can rally and and feel better about themselves and about
Speaker 1: the areas they live in and take care of some
Speaker 1: of the things that were damaged. Um. And hopefully to
Speaker 1: to not give the sense to people who don't use
Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook or these higher technology uh services that no,
Speaker 1: they're not all you know, they can be used for
Speaker 1: good things, you know, because yeah, I mean, something like
Speaker 1: this gets pressed and people who don't use them don't
Speaker 1: understand that, you know, the technology is not necessarily to
Speaker 1: blame but can be used to enable those people. If
Speaker 1: we took the technology out of this story entirely, the
Speaker 1: thing They're probably still would have been riots, they just
Speaker 1: may not have been as intense and as numerous as
Speaker 1: they have been over the last few days. Um, it
Speaker 1: certainly enabled people to be more agile in their mood. Rights, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the technology aided, but it did not cause this, and
Speaker 1: the and to suggest otherwise as being pretty naive and shortsighted. Um.
Speaker 1: The the takeaway I get is that what you need
Speaker 1: to do is look at the underlying problems that allowed
Speaker 1: this situation to even start, and it may very well
Speaker 1: be that there is no solution to those underlying problems.
Speaker 1: It might well be that the problems that exist are
Speaker 1: so so ingrained in our society that there's no real
Speaker 1: way to solve them, which is is unfortunate. It's also
Speaker 1: possibly true, but without actually looking at it, we can't
Speaker 1: really come to that conclusion. And to just jump on
Speaker 1: the technology aspect of this story is to ignore the
Speaker 1: deeper causes that are fueling the riots in the first place. Right. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the technology part is a problem. I mean, you want
Speaker 1: the government has to do something right, and in fact,
Speaker 1: by the time when we're recording this podcast, they're already
Speaker 1: been some pretty significant strides and the riots do seem
Speaker 1: to be uh to be calming down now, it's seem
Speaker 1: to be under control. But the government had was in
Speaker 1: a tough position because it had to respond. It had
Speaker 1: all these innocent people who are being targeted and through
Speaker 1: no fault of their own, and they had very few
Speaker 1: uh resources at their disposal to be able to respond
Speaker 1: to the this issue. And one of the you know,
Speaker 1: they're looking for a quick and and relatively easy solution
Speaker 1: to a very complex problem. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: the government was just focusing on technology or just focusing
Speaker 1: on a quick solution, but that was one of the
Speaker 1: things they had. The government had to consider. So, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're looking at something as widespread as that and
Speaker 1: so apparently out of control, and and it's due to
Speaker 1: very complex factors that are have been boiling up for generations,
Speaker 1: there's no real easy solution in the first place. So
Speaker 1: I think I think one the government said that they
Speaker 1: were looking at that, I think if they had thought
Speaker 1: about it a little bit longer or talked with some experts,
Speaker 1: they would have realized very quickly that that that shutting
Speaker 1: this down is not really a viable choice. Um And
Speaker 1: to the media jumping on the announcement. I think that
Speaker 1: made it more than what it was as far as
Speaker 1: that the technology aspect and what to do about it
Speaker 1: is concerned. It drew a lot of attention to it
Speaker 1: and probably made more of a mountain out of it
Speaker 1: than it should have been. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was very obvious that the technology was
Speaker 1: playing a role. I mean, there's no way of getting
Speaker 1: around it. It's just that again, Uh, if the technology
Speaker 1: hadn't been there, I think we would have still seen
Speaker 1: a disturbance, it just wouldn't have been as coordinated. So
Speaker 1: you can't you shutting down the means of communication wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily solve any problems. So thank you so much Michael
Speaker 1: for for sending that question in. And I mean, I
Speaker 1: think this is a good companion piece to our other
Speaker 1: one about using technology in various forms of protests UM,
Speaker 1: because this is kind of like the the opposite right,
Speaker 1: using them in order to cause uh damage and maybe
Speaker 1: for personal gain, as opposed to trying to actually make
Speaker 1: social and political changes. Because I get the feeling that
Speaker 1: these riots really didn't have a goal outside of mayhem
Speaker 1: and looting, UM, at least not one that was clear
Speaker 1: to the average observer. I know that I'm still struggling
Speaker 1: to understand it, and I probably will for quite some time.
Speaker 1: Uh so, great question. If you guys have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for future tech Stuff topics, we highly recommend you get
Speaker 1: in touch with us and let us know. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter and Facebook, assuming you're going but
Speaker 1: hasn't blocked it. Uh. The handle there is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: hs W, and you can email us. Our address is
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff Works dot com. Chris and
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Be sure
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