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| 2011 | |
| June | |
| Thu Jun 16 23:51:11 2011 Vancouver Riots |
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| Thu Jun 16 23:51:11 2011 Vancouver Riots Crowdsourcing vs. crowds |
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| For those of you that follow hockey, the
Stanley Cup finals completed last night, and Boston beat Vancouver for the title.
Although people do tend to be somewhat irrational about sports, some Vancouver Canucks fans (or supposed fans) took things a bit overboard and rioted in anger over the loss. Actually, it's not clear that they were angry about losing, but they certainly wanted to riot. Almost 150 people needed to visit the hospital, and 100 people were arrested. Also, there was looting and damage to businesses, cars overturned and set on fire, and the usual riot mess. The damage was spread around a hundred blocks downtown. The worst part of rioting? Rioters often get away with it. They fade into the crowd, and aren't easy to identify. They smash some windows, grab some loot, and disappear. However, that may change this time. A few websites are supporting crowdsourcing as a way to identify as many people as possible in the riots. The idea is that anyone can post pictures and video of the riots, and people can surf what's there to see if they recognize anyone. If they recognize anyone, they are encouraged to contact the Vancouver police. Pretty cool! I sure hope they catch a number of rioters this way. There is some coverage of the sites here, and you can see some example crowdsourcing sites here and here. See anyone you know? I haven't yet heard of people running footage or images through Facebook's facial recognition software, but it seems like an obvious next step! That would be a fast and accurate way to identify people in the crowd. There is definitely a risk of vigilante action or false accusations for this, but it is no worse than not using crowdsourcing, and may be a way to help identify looters and criminals easier. Also, it requires that people volunteer their photos, so hopefully Vancouver rioters will be identified and brought before authorities, but participants in the Arab Spring will remain safely unknown to authoritarian governments. Comments |
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