Anti-Social Media

Most things in life have both a potential positive effect and a potential negative effect. So it is with what we have come to call “social media”. Facebook, twitter and countless other instant communication instant messaging and Internet facilities.

But as in most things social media can be positive. Linking lonely people together; finding old friends; fostering social revolution in oppressed countries; organizing music or charitable events and so on.

But it can also result in what I will call “Anti-Social Media”. Terrorists recruiting and communicating throw these social media networks - and “Flash Mobs”.

By now you have heard of “Flash Mobs”. This is where, using the social media, a smash and crab is organized by a group of people to basically rob a retail store.

Recently I was watching The ABC Evening News with Diane Sawyer and Miss Sawyer stated that 1 in 10 retail stores in the US had been hit by a Flash Mob smash and grab. I can’t believe this statistic. 1 in 10! But let’s assume that this statistic is incorrect. That it is not 1 in 10 but 1 in 100 or even in 1 in 1000. That is still a huge number of these incidents given the number of retail establishments in the US.

Flash Mobs are in my opinion a form not only of criminality, but of a breakdown of our social fabric resulting in hooliganism and anarchy. In cannot and must not be tolerated. Law enforcement must immediately acknowledge that this is a real danger to the fabric of our society just as are the riots, looting and burning experienced recently in the UK.

If we allow this practice to go undeterred by the full force of the law with arrest and harsh penalties in will grow and if ABC News statistic is not correct at 1 in 10, it soon may be unless we act effectively to regain control of our social media and our society.