In the news

Here's a nice example of the laziest of lazy journalism that pervades during these types of events.

Is technology to blame for the London riots?

I would imagine that somewhere, someone wrote an article titled "Is witchcraft to blame for the great fire of 1666?"

I remember journalists saying as far back as 1999 that Reclaim the Streets actions were organised 'over the Internet'. That was simply not true. As far as I could tell, it was then, and probably is now, people trying to interpret events in ways that they themselves understood, based on what technology they used (e.g., as journalists at the time), i.e. projecting their own views on what's happening. As soon as you become aware of that and question yourself a little, you can't really persist in projecting.