Start The Riot

Addendum: Well, so far I've been doing some further thinking on this, especially when I came across a news article on the possibility of using online social media for citizen surveillance. I spent quite a bit of time sorting out all the arguments in this article and the original blog by Alexandra Samuel. If I can get something reasonably clear and coherent out of all of this, then I'll add some thoughts on it the coming days. Right now all I can say is that the online discussion around this is quite heated and unfortunately confused, mixing up one issue with another. That said, I'm not going to pretend that I'm descending some grand mountain of wisdom to set things aright! I'm just hoping to find out exactly what issues are being debated there. Until then, we return you to our regularly scheduled broadcasting (unfortunately it's a repeat)...

First of all: Where did all my fellow chat Canadians go? C'mon people, I'm getting lonely in there.

Huh, Vancouver's NHL team lost in game 7 of the NHL finals, and now some fans are rioting, live as I type this.

CTV News coverage of post-game aftermath.

Why oh why do you have to do this, good people of Vancouver? I bet this will get more play in foreign (read: non-Canadian) markets than Boston winning the cup.

Of course, the Twitterverse is all aflame tonight, as I've been keeping track of that too (tweets ranging from flippant to pleading):

"Laker fans are rioting in the streets..oh wait those are Vancouver Canucks fans after disastrous game 7 shut out loss"

"don't blame the canucks fans. half these people rioting dont even watch hockey"

"Home sweet home. I don't know which was scarier: the tear gas or almost dropping my phone."

"you're rioting in #vancouver, you break into a London Drugs, and you come out with Pringles?"

"The mounted horses in Vancouver are actually wearing riot gear. This may be the greatest moment in my life"

"Anyone who causes damage to Vancouver embarrasses me. Police show great patience."

"This needs to stop, the canucks lost not the city. Our beautiful vancouver doesn't deserve this, please stop destorying my home!"

Seriously, I just don't know. Maybe I'll get my thoughts together tomorrow, when I'm done with all the news-information overload. Be safe, my friends in Vancouver.

End