Sharing riot videos? You’re part of the problem

We’re told these riots are about immigration, racism, angry Islam, elite blindness and identity politics – and, to a point, that’s all true. But the disorder in British cities is also about the internet – and online videos in particular. People just can’t stop sharing ‘riot porn’, whether it be savage beatings, vicious clashes between rioters and the police, or buildings and cars being set on fire. Violence, like sex, goes viral because it is so addictive to watch.

Unlike with pornography, however, there’s no stigma attached to the circulation of such footage, especially if the person on the receiving end of the brutality seems to be a villain. It’s schadenfreude on steroids. Last week, a clip of a skinhead getting a brick in the testicles after he’d charged at police officers garnered millions of views. So did a video of a police dog tearing into another man’s bottom.

The gratuitous dissemination of this ugly imagery is often dressed up as political commentary.