(un)Smart-Mobs: text-messages used to incite racial violence at NSW's Cronulla Beach

"Come to Cronulla this weekend to take revenge. This Sunday every Aussie in the Shire get down to North Cronulla to support the Leb and wog bashing day ..."
(anonymous text message, circulated between 5-10 December 2005)

Fig.1 Sydney Morning Herald's Photographer Andrew Meares captures the fury of the Cronulla riots.

[The use of mobile telephone text messages to incite racial hared at North Cronulla beach in Sydney, Australia is a prime example of what Howard Rheingold calls 'Smart-Mobs'. Although it is clear in this case that the content of the messages has very little to do with the idea of being smart - the fact that groups of individuals are able to self-organise in this way is. Such technology allows individuals to form groups in an ad-hoc manner (in this case, groups of foolish red-necks), which is interesting give the centralised nature of most other communication avenues.]

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