
How Blackberry, not Twitter, fuelled the fire under London’s riots - baha_man
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/08/08/how-blackberry-not-twitter-fuelled-the-fire-under-londons-riots/
======
jdietrich
Setting aside the riots, the prevalence of BBM amongst teenagers is a really
astonishing phenomenon. Blackberry is _the_ smartphone brand amongst British
teenagers and if a peer group has "gone BBM" the network effects mean that no
other brand is even worth contemplating. In the UK at least, RIM have
practically given up on the corporate market and BlackBerry is increasingly
seen solely as a youth brand. BBM is so deeply entrenched that there's a
palpable backlash[1].

I'd love to see some research done on the ethnography of it all. The common
argument is that BBM is a very cheap way of keeping in touch - unlimited data
is £5 a month even on a prepaid tariff - but I'm not sure how well that
argument holds up. Unlimited SMS has been that cheap for years and there are
plenty of other options.

I think the real reason is more sophisticated. I think (but can't prove) that
many of the enterprise features in BBM are hugely valuable to young people.
Ubiquitous, instant delivery and read receipts are helpful for corporate
users, but they're _vital_ if you're a teenager who has just asked someone out
on a date. The simple but highly nuanced implementation of message groups was
clearly intended to allow easy and ad-hoc communication for business groups,
but allows teenagers the fine-grained control they demand over their social
circles.

In many ways, what Google are trying to achieve with Circles in Google+ has
been achieved by teenagers using BBM. I think in many ways BBM is as important
as Twitter, but entirely invisible to the outside world. I think we have a
huge amount to learn from the runaway success of Blackberry amongst the youth.

[1]<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt8hECfLu-k>

~~~
ern
In South Africa, Blackberry was voted "Coolest Brand" in a 2011 survey of
urban youth, so the phenomenon is not limited to the UK (
[http://www.newstime.co.za/ScienceandTech/Generation_Next_Nam...](http://www.newstime.co.za/ScienceandTech/Generation_Next_Names_BlackBerry_South_Africa%E2%80%99s_Coolest_Brand/26027/)
).

------
ig1
I think a lot of the looters using BBM failed to realize that RIM will hand
over the message data upon receiving a police subpoena, plus BBM is much more
tightly attached to a persons real identity than say a twitter account.

Pretty much anyone who sent a self-incriminating message or incited
violence/rioting is likely to get arrested over the coming weeks.

~~~
officemonkey
You can transmit information without incriminating yourself. To wit, "Shits
getting real at Goodge Street! You gotta come see!"

~~~
ig1
The police will have a lot of photographs, film, etc. of what went on. The
hardest part is matching those images to people, identifying who was at the
scene of the crime via BBM, etc. makes that a lot easier.

------
rabble
I'm in Colombia this week to give a talk, and I was asking people about their
phones. Turns out that if you've got lots of money to spend on your phone, you
get an iPhone, if you've got some money, you get an android, and if you're
poor or working class you get a blackberry.

It's fascinating that blackberry has moved from the phone of business, to the
phone of the poor and youth.

~~~
gaius
Heh, no, that demographic gets BlackBerrys because rappers like Jay-Z rap
about them, they are an accessory, the same demographic buys Rolexes while
people who actually have money to spend on a watch get a Patek Phillippe.

~~~
mattdeboard
It's not often this flavor of condescending twattery makes it to HN.

Why do you think Jay-Z raps about/endorses it? If the answer is as simple as,
"He's paid to," then surely he'd be rapping about other brands beyond the
traditional Escalade/Cristal/etc. The real answer is that Blackberry is an
inexpensive smart phone option that is not the "white and corporate" option.
You've got an unrealistic idea of what poor and urban looks like and acts
like.

A Blackberry IS an accessory, but only because it's considered a symbol of
being part of a particular group, not because rappers endorse it.

"Real money buys Patek Phillippe." Give me a break.

~~~
gaius
_Encore_ was released in 2003, long before BB was the "inexpensive
smartphone".

Jay-Z is a businessman first and foremost. Kids don't care about Exchange
integration or whatever. He namechecks the brands he likes (as far as I know,
he has no official relationship with the brand) and his fans buy them. Same
with Rolex, I don't think they have marketing arrangement with any rappers but
they get namechecked all the time.

~~~
mattdeboard
You're right, if it wasn't for Jay-Z black people would be using iPhones. Also
I'm not sure how a mention in 2003 has spurred adoption in 2011.

~~~
gaius
Why play the race card? Living in London you will see that "urban youth" comes
in all shades. They don't buy BB because it is the cheapest (it isn't) or "the
best" (for whatever values of best), but because it's fashionable, because
style icons for whatever reason have adopted it. I don't know why you want to
argue with this.

FWIW I have a BB myself, I am certainly not disparaging anyone else who has
one...

------
JacobAldridge
I live in Brixton, where the 'riots' spread to last night. Didn't sleep very
well, though the magnitude surprised me when I awoke (I'm now immune to sirens
at all hours - the 'Brixton whistle' doesn't disturb me).

Definitely a degree of organisation and cohesion. When I went for milk this
morning, people had smashed into Tesco and Lidl (big supermarket chains) but
left all the independent grocers alone.

Overhearing the word on the street, there's not much more to be done in my
area, but bigger targets (Oxford Circus in particular) will cop it tonight. Of
course, the real BBM message may be different...

~~~
ig1
Tesco (and to a lesser extent Lidl) stock higher value goods than most
independent grocers...

~~~
mseebach
Tesco is big and corporate and therefore evil. In riots in Copenhagen similar
rationales has been offered quite explicitly.

~~~
ig1
Tesco stores frequently sell high-value electronics, dvds, etc. They also sell
high-cost consumables like razor blades and condoms which are frequent targets
for shoplifters.

It's much more likely greed was the cause of the decision of what to loot
rather than ethics.

------
praptak
This article provides very little facts to support the thesis that BBM was the
core medium behind the protests. It all boils down to "BBM is non-public",
"Blackberries are cheaper than Androids and iPhones" and "Duggan used
BlackBerry Messenger to send his last message to his girlfriend".

And the linked post? All it has to prove the connection is the output of
bbm+tottenham query from, yeah, you guessed it, Twitter. All in all not very
convincing if you ask me.

------
baha_man
Not sure if it adds much, but here's the Guardian's take on the same story:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-
fac...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/aug/08/london-riots-facebook-
twitter-blackberry)

------
danparsonson
I'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from this. BBM is the weapon of
choice for the modern rioter? I confess I've never used the software - does it
include special features to incite rioting?

Neither Blackberry, Twitter, nor Facebook fuelled the fire under London's
riots, any more than the internet, radio waves, or electricity did. Violent,
hateful people did that.

~~~
jlangenauer
Actually, if we drop the Victorian mindset that people are innately criminals,
we might look to the social and economic causes - massive unemployment amongst
black youth, closure of youth services, almost complete political
disenfranchisement - for something of an explanation of the riots.

~~~
ig1
I think "we want free stuff" is a pretty good explanation for the vast
majority of the looting, and "smashing stuff is fun" for the destruction.

There are plenty of places with high-unemployment, political
disenfranchisement, etc. which haven't turned to rioting.

While it may have been a contributing cause (if you've got less to risk you
might be more willing to get involved in looting, etc.) to say it was the
primary reason is insulting to the million of law-abiding individuals from
struggling economic and social backgrounds.

~~~
nodata
Your answer is a diversion. You changed the reason to "these people want free
stuff".

That doesn't help. Why aren't YOU looting and rioting and "wanting free
stuff"?

We're back to the same question again. Why these people? Why this group?

~~~
gaius
This is a "deprived" area of London, but the question is, what are they being
deprived of? What is it that they had before, that has been taken away? What
do other parts of London have that they do not?

If you want an answer, it's that successive governments _gave_ them free
stuff, everything from their housing up, and now they can't really tell the
difference between stuff you just get and stuff you're free to take anymore.

~~~
nodata
You don't need to have lost something to be deprived. You can be deprived of
chances that others have.

~~~
gaius
Which are what exactly?

Unless I'm mistaken the people of Tottenham get free educations to the age of
18 same as everyone else in the UK. They also have as good a public transport
infrastructure as anywhere else and can work anywhere in London.

~~~
nodata
Well that's what we're trying to find the answer to: what's different about
this group of people?

~~~
gaius
And I told you. They've been given so much they can't now see why they can't
just take anything they want.

Seriously, you don't fight for freedom/education/"a chance" by nicking a 50"
plasma TV. And doing so is an insult to people like, for example, the Libyans
and Egyptians who really did - and do - fight for something worthwhile.

~~~
nodata
But that's no answer at all - all of this "free stuff" you talk about is
available to other groups who did not loot.

~~~
rimantas
They probably also had different upbringing, and grew with mindset that
society owns them something. Why? Who knows. Just because. It simmilar where I
am. People don't bother to go to elections and then complain to no end how bad
tha parlament is as if that parlament was somehow forced onto us…

~~~
nodata
I don't agree. "Just because" is no answer. And your first point is an
opinion, not a fact, your last point is a different issue.

------
digamber_kamat
I think this is plain silly. The article does not provide any proof besides
telling us how BBM could have possibly be used in such cases. Did you really
catch people who planned it using BBM ?

Showing couple of BBM results from twitter is a clear case of ignoring the
elephant in the room (twitter itself) and going after a fly.

------
fabiandesimone
In Venezuela for example, Blackberry penetration is quite a phenomenon.

Also, it has become a symbol of status and a desired luxury item to the point
where people are literally getting killed for it.

Yes, Iphone and Android are growing like weed and we all know RIM's latest
setbacks. But outside the USA, BB is quite strong.

