Britain is still reeling from the riots that have gripped the nation. Many a media outlet has highlighted the role of social media in beginning (and cleaning up) the riots, and the blogosphere and social networks have been inundated with minute-by-minute commentary, updates and personal accounts, keeping one step ahead of the news.

A Facebook page, set up as a tribute, turned into a call to action to protest the police shooting of Tottenham resident Mark Duggan, which quickly picked up pace and snowballed into a fully fledged riot on Saturday night.

Much has been made of the fact that the riots were apparently “fuelled by social media”. But as The Guardian points out, the public nature of Facebook and Twitter meant that communicating through these networks was simply asking to get caught:

… if there was any sign that a peaceful protest would escalate, it wasn’t to be found on Facebook. Twitter was slightly more indicative: tweets about an attempt to target Sunday’s Hackney Carnival were spotted by police and the event was abruptly cancelled.

Scotland Yard warned on Monday afternoon that those ‘inciting violence’ on the 140-character social network would not go unpunished. Deputy assistant commissioner Stephen Kavanagh confirmed that officers were looking at the website as part of investigations into widespread looting and rioting.

Enter BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, the instant messenger of choice for many of Britain’s youth. Jonathan Akwue, blogger and media strategist, picked up on the fact that BBM may have been used to organise the rioters, highlighting what makes the services so appealing to young people:

BBM as it is known, is an instant messenger system that has become popular for three main reasons: it’s fast (naturally), it’s virtually free, and unlike Twitter or Facebook, it’s private.

Blackberry recognised the appeal of their products to the urban market and has had a long association with Jay-z in the States. In the UK, they recently hosted a ‘secret gig’ in Shoreditch Town Hall featuring Tinie Tempah, Wretch 32 and Devlin.

News outlets have pointed to the fact that the use of BlackBerrys for criminal activities has long been a concern for police, and that its level of privacy makes it difficult for police to track messages sent by, and to listen in on, suspected criminals. This article (from CBC in 2009) explains why:

The problem is that BlackBerry smartphones, designed by Waterloo, Ont.-based Research In Motion initially for corporate clients, run software called the BlackBerry Enterprise Server that creates a secure and private network and encrypts data.

Police say criminals are using additional layers of encryption with other types of software, bringing the encryption level up to military grade.

As Jonathan Akwue points out, BlackBerry responded with a statement via Twitter:

We feel for those impacted by the riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can.

Meanwhile, bloggers in Egypt, watching footage and seeing some parallels between the scenes they saw in Cairo earlier this year, took to their keyboards to hash out the differences between the confrontations:

Just a few minutes after one CNN correspondent, Dan Rivers, was forced to scurry behind police lines — as bottles were thrown at him and his cameraman in the south London neighborhood of Peckham — the reporter suggested that the riots had seemed to gain a kind of “momentum” through social networking. The dynamic, Mr Rivers said, reminded him of the way protests had built and spread through cities in the Middle East earlier this year.

Watching Mr Rivers report from Peckham, an Egyptian blogger and activist who writes as Zeinobia commented, “The CNN reporter in London is acting as if he is in war zone.” Moments later, she added, “Oh, God, they are attacking the CNN crew in London and it was a live action.”

Trying to get her head around the mayhem, Zeinobia — who took part in the protests that forced Hosni Mubarak from power — asked her followers on Twitter to explain what was happening. A Cairo radio anchor, who writes as LinaNileFM on the social network, responded, “Riots broke out in North London over a police shooting, started peacefully then turned violent with cars and buildings burnt down.”

As she switched between coverage of London’s riots on CNN and Al Jazeera, Zeinobia wrote, “To be honest I do not understand why protesters would set shops and houses on fire.”

Back in the UK, footage and personal accounts of the riots have all but taken over social networking, with YouTube footage and Twitpics providing a clearer picture of the events of the past few days:

Among the thousands tweeting under the hashtag #londonriots is Madeleine Bride, a 16-year-old living in London, who has been keeping the Twitterverse updated by providing a running (and endearing) account of the events around her, as only a 16-year-old can:

My friend Minas family’s shop was completely trashed. Everythin is gone. One of the boys who worked there once asked me out. I feel so bad

Many a Google Map has also emerged, mapping exact events that contributed to the chaos.

And Metropolitan Police has posted pictures of suspected rioters on photo-sharing website Flickr, appealing for those who can identify them to come forward:

Operation Withern is investigating the serious disorder and violence that has been affecting parts of London. Today (Tuesday August 9) we are releasing the first of many images of suspects.

Operation Withern’s priority is to bring to justice those who have committed violent and criminal acts. As the detailed and thorough investigation progresses we will be issuing photographs of suspects, like those of alleged looters we are releasing today (Tuesday August 9). These CCTV images are from incidents of looting in Croydon over last night and in Norwood Road SE27 in the early hours of this morning.

If anyone recognises individuals in the photographs or has any information about the violence and disorder that has occurred they should contact the Major Investigation Team …

Blogger Penny Red has been re-tweeted left, right and centre for her post that delves a bit deeper than most coverage into the social and cultural dynamics that as she says made Britain a “tinderbox” waiting to be set alight:

The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don’t know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news.

She adds:

Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything — literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.

But while many may be (correctly or incorrectly) quick to blame social media for playing a part in organising the chaos that has bought a country to it’s knees, a wave of solidarity and civic pride has emerged among residents on Twitter.

But it’s not all bad news on the social media front, with many demonstrating that when Twitter is good, it’s very, very good. Tweeting under @riotcleanup, thousands have pledged to clean up their cities over the coming days, with times and locations of scheduled clean ups publicised on Twitter.

Also doing their bit is #operationcupoftea, a movement that encourages people to demonstrate their anti-riot sentiments by staying home and putting the kettle on. The group’s Facebook event page has more than 150,000 people “Attending”, and thousands have shown their support by uploading pictures of their cuppa.