Crowdsourced identification of London rioters

http://londonrioters.co.uk/identify/

by wgx • 15 years ago

9 10 15 years ago

londonrioters.co.uk

avantgrden• 15 years ago

I have recognized PM David Cameron, what about u guys?

dazzawazza• 15 years ago

I don't know how small the image set is but it kept getting the same image again and again. Maybe one in five was a dupe.

The only person I recognised was Kernel Sanders ;)

praptak• 15 years ago

Identify them and then what? If you haven't got any witnesses to accompany the photo, it is useless as evidence. Running around masked with a cardboard box full of stuff is not a crime by itself.

graemem2• 15 years ago

I don't know about this site, but the photos in the UK newspapers are released by the police - so they are probably linked to evidence on that person. So if you could identify someone the police would just have to find them.

zbyszek• 15 years ago

Was there not something similar after the Vancouver riots? There were misgivings expressed: http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/world/on-the-dangers-of-crowd.... Was is successful?

graemem2• 15 years ago

I'm on a pretty slow connection here, so If I want to try identify some rioters, I need to sit and wait for a whole page to load with the new image? I could do that once, maybe twice before getting bored.

Why not just follow the "old school" method and just make a page full of faces, like the newspapers are doing. There is nothing new or innovative about this site, if anything it's backwards!

pointyhat2• 15 years ago

This is the most dangerous use of technology these days: Incrimination. I've been campaigning to have this site shut down in various places.

All it takes is incorrect information, a bad photo or a grudge and the world comes down for an innocent person. On the hand of the guilty people, it shows nothing of what they have done, merely a snapshot in time.

Also, if the database is hacked or leaked in any way, a lot of people are going to suffer from vigilante attacks.

This is simply NOT A GOOD THING.

Also it's technically 100% ILLEGAL as they do not have a data controller and are not registered with the ICO. This IS vigilante justice by idiots.

And after all, the politicians gave a clear message with the expense scandals, News Corp scandals and cuts that it's ok to loot and pillage...

kahawe• 15 years ago

This goes a bit beyond the purpose of the website but is in context of what you wrote about incrimination and vigilantes:

It is amazing how quickly and effortlessly the otherwise so liberal and typically indifferent average internet user will turn into a zealous vigilante from behind their keyboard - I remember countless instances of that on reddit and 4chan basically calling for a lynch mob on people who tortured animals or did other very-bad-image crimes.(And by "bad image" I am referring to the fact that the average internet vigilantes I encountered definitely has strongly skewed priorities as to which crimes need the most severe punishment) And there are reports of the same being rather "popular" in China.

And the worst part was? You could not convince them that what they are doing is completely wrong, illegal and immoral by all of our modern social standards. I mean, really, what ever happened to "in dvbio pro reo" and do these people not realize how very much alike their actions are to the dark times of the SS/SA, Gestapo and Stasi? How can you justify "taking things into your own hands" and ruining other people's life?

pointyhat2• 15 years ago

Very true. I think this was a very pre-emptive warning about humanity:

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana

I worry less about the rioters than I do about the general population calling for lynching and murder.

X4• 15 years ago

Reminds me to Minority Report. Really. I'd like to express something without beeing rude, because it's a waste of energy.

</emotionml>

I'm sorry if my emotion doesn't validate for you, but it validates for me ;)

Crowdsourced identification of London rioters

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