Is Social Networking As WE Know It Behind Saturday's Riots?

As of today, as of me typing this... there is NO EVIDENCE AT ALL that this was organized on a "Social Networking" website. None. Twitter, MySpace, Facebook... so far, nothing that anyone with a computer and an account on them can find readily, or ever with digging. A new name, called "Ourspace.com", was raised and has almost been debunked as of me writing this.

The police believe that these networks ARE to blame, and have taken steps to monitor them. A statment from "Spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore says police had noticed groups of teens gathering in the city in the last few weekends. He says officials will monitor the social networks to try to identify the ringleaders."

So are we seeing just this? Or are we too busy hunting down boogymen when, in reality, we should be hunting for something else?

One report states that teenagers were on cellphones making calls and texting during the event. This adds two things to what we see; the possibility of that this is being organized through cellphones, thus harder to track, or just a few people huddled in a mess they didn't creat. I sure was on my phone while I was stuck down there myself.

There is also the possiblity that, as I said, we're hunting the wrong thing down. Who's to say this isn't being done through something as simple as a message board? Its pretty easy to do: Create an online forum/message board that is marked as "private" and only approved users can either create an account or only registered members can access it. A word-of-mouth forum is entirely possible.

At the same time, we can't simply claim "isolated incident", either. Similar events have happened in Baltimore, MD at around the same time as similar events in Philadelphia that night. A pattern is emerging, and one is forced to question if these are, in fact, "Random events".

Right now, there are still questions with no real answers. Hopefully something concrete will arise.

So far, this is the only video found of the events from May 24th on South Street: