Facebook riot inciters get four-year prison terms

Two men who used Facebook in an attempt to incite disorder during the London riots were jailed on Tuesday at Chester Crown Court.

Jordan Blackshaw, 20, and Perry Sutcliffe-Keenan, 22, were each sentenced to four years behind bars, even though the Facebook posts did not lead to any criminal activity.

Cheshire Constabulary Assistant Chief Constable Phil Thompson welcomed the verdict as a "strong message" to social networking users thinking about stirring up trouble.

"The sentences passed down today recognise how technology can be abused to incite criminal activity, and sends a strong message to potential troublemakers," he said.

"If we cast our minds back just a few days to last week and recall the way in which technology was used to spread incitement and bring people together to commit acts of criminality, it is easy to understand the four-year sentences that were handed down in court today."

Thompson claimed that the Cheshire police force had quickly realised the way in which social media was being used by rioters and looters to incite trouble and create fear in communities.

According to a report in The Guardian, Blackshaw and Sutcliffe-Keenan set up event pages on Facebook to invite 'friends' to "smash down" and riot, but neither page resulted in actual rioting.

Blackshaw is reported to have turned up to his event alone, where he was immediately arrested.

The sentences are just further worrying signs that the government and police blame social media sites for the riots, rather than addressing the underlying problems in UK society.

In a speech to the House of Commons last Thursday, prime minister David Cameron suggested that social media sites, and communication technologies such as BlackBerry Messenger, could even be banned during times of social unrest.

Clearly the authorities lack a firm understanding of social media, and have overlooked the good it can bring, such as how Facebook and Twitter united people to clean up the mess after the riots.

The authorities must also have used BBM and social media to track the would-be rioters, so a ban on these tools would end up making the job of policing harder.

It was easy for the police to track down Blackshaw and Sutcliffe-Keenan and use them as scapegoats, but reacting to the riots with sentencing which is completely out of proportion to the crime will only exacerbate the perceived social injustice against which many were rioting in the first place.

17 Aug 2011