Antisocial Media

How to start a riot in the age of social media.

Corner of a Café-Concert by Édouard Manet (1879)

Note: An earlier version of this reportage appeared at The Spectator.

On Tuesday morning, residents of the close-knit community of Ely, Cardiff, surveyed what reporters on the ground described as a ‘war zone.’

Overnight, rioters flipped and torched cars, volleyed fireworks at police, and beat up a suspected undercover cop, as masked gangs staged running battles with riot police in a nine-hour orgy of mayhem.

It started on Monday evening. A tragedy, the details of which would usually define such a night, lit the tinder for a night of wanton destruction.

Kyrees Sullivan, 16, and his best friend Harvey Evans, 15, were riding an e-bike along their local streets. Just after 6 p.m., both boys lay dead.

As news of the fatal crash filtered through Ely, around 150 people gathered at the scene. At the time, rumours circulating on Facebook suggested the police, a semi-permanent presence in deprived Ely, had chased the boys to their death.

At the crash site, locals said they were paying their respects when tensions with the police boiled over. Over the next nine hours, gangs staged pitched battles with riot cops as cars went up in flames and terrified residents watched from their windows in horror.