Look mom, I’m rioting on YouTube

It’s June 16th 2011 and the Vancouver Canucks ice hockey team loses Game seven of the Stanley Cup final to the Boston Bruins. A few beer bottles are thrown at the giant tv screen, some garbage cans are overturned. And then out on the streets a full scale riot kicks off.

Reminiscent of the riots of 1994 under very similar circumstances, this time things may well turn out differently, thanks largely to the social media sites we live with an use every day, such as Facebook.

Cars are burnt, windows smashed, riot police attacked and general mahem ensues. All the while people are videoing each event, taking photos and posting them to their favourite sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Many citizens of Vancouver take umbrage to the wilful destruction of property in their city and they start mobilising online. One person sets up a Facebook page — Post Riot Clean-up Let’s help Vancouver — where anyone wanting to help with the cleanup can add their name and get into on how and where to help.

Someone sets up a “name and shame” Tumblr blog, Vancouver 2011 Riot Criminal List. The blog aims to identify and gather evidence against rioters and enables anyone to post pics or video footage of suspected rioters. Some folk are so busted.

One of the most interesting things that happened was that loads of the rioters go online and describe their deeds, burning things, in detail. Sometimes with pics. A dude named Brock Anton got a lot of press online for his boasting. This screenshot below of his Facebook post soon found its way online:

The Vancouver police department started tweeting immediately and shared their dismay at the destruction. They also urged people to hold on to their photos and videos to help identify the perpetrators after the event. And this is where things are going to get interesting.

With the massive social media penetration in Canada, this could be the largest scale “trial by social media” prosecution drive in history. You can be sure that Facebook, Twitter and friends are going to play a starring role in many court cases and in tracking down suspects.

Although posts, such as that of the gung-ho Mr. Brock above, may not be evidence of a crime, he is now on a short list of suspects. And with face recognition software (like that rolled out by Facebook recently), the online braggers will be profiled for a match in any of the thousands of videos and images taken of the happenings.