FreshNetworks Blog

Police in Torbay, a resort town in the South of England, are worried. They’re so worried in fact that they’ve asked a judge to let them ban the sale of alcohol across the whole town and to allow them to invoke these powers at very short notice. What’s caused this response? An event organised on Facebook.

The event, billed as the “biggest ever beach party” is on Friday and as of yet has no time or location. But over 4,300 people have already signed up and after the publicity it received in the press this morning, I’d expect that number to be much higher by the end of the day. The policy believe the event is set to take place on one of five beaches around Torbay and want to control what happens. Faced with the prospect of tens of thousands of people turning up for an evening party they’ve decided the best reaction would be to ban the sale of alcohol in the town.

Events like this, organised on social networking sites, offer a unique opportunity for organisers. The event will spread virally and through networks, and it is very easy for large numbers of people to see the event and to choose to ‘attend’. Of course, they’re not really attending yet and just as it’s easier for more people to be invited through social networks than traditional media, it’s also easier to say you’ll turn up and then not. But if even a small percentage of those who say they’ll go actually do go, then the police in Torbay are going to face a few thousand person beach party. So the power of social networking offers a challenge to the police too.

Beyond whether they were right to react in this way (does banning alcohol sales really solve the problem, what about people just bringing alcohol with them), there is a wider question here about how to deal with events organised in this way.

The problem police face here is that, unlike traditional events and gatherings, social networking organised events often don’t have a single person organising them. There will be a named individual who set up the group, or who came up with the idea in the first place. But they have little, if any, control over the event. So the traditional approach of working with an event organizer is difficult, if possible at all.

Rather, social networks mean that a multitude of different networks of people will have independently decided to attend the event. These hundreds of different networks or friends are organising themselves and will effectively all independently co-create the party. This is tough for the police, or anybody else trying to influence or control events. They can’t be expected to enter each of these networks and with no nexus of control they can’t influence the whole event.

So what should they do? Our approach to things that are organised or discussed in social networks is to engage on the same terms. Banning alcohol and announcing this to the press will be seen by the event attendees as an old-fashioned and out-of-step response. It will highlight the difference between the social network-organised event and the traditional media approach of the police. If anything this will only create more interest in the event and spread the message further.

Engaging the event online may have been a better approach. Dealing with what is no doubt an awkward situation for them and helping people to have the event they are all helping to create as well as making sure that it is safe.

Of course, there’s another vocal group condemning the police alcohol ban. Local shops and traders are potentially going to miss out on trade from the busiest weekend they’ll have all year.

Oh and if you want to join the event, click here.