thedailywhat:

Bigger Brother of the Day: MI5, the British intelligence agency normally tasked with hunting down terrorists, will collaborate with the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) to assist police in locating individuals suspected of using social networking services to orchestrate looting raids.

The agencies will employ their advanced technologies to track down alleged instigators using intercepted BlackBerry Messenger broadcasts that police were unable to decrypt or trace.

In related news, two men in their early twenties were sentenced today by a court in Cheshire to four years in prison for inciting local “riot events” via Facebook. “You sought to take advantage of crime elsewhere and transpose it to the peaceful streets of Northwich,” Judge Elgan Edwards QC said during sentencing. “No one actually turned up due to the prompt and efficient actions of police in using modern policing.”

Meanwhile, Chinese state media published words of praise for UK PM David Cameron’s proposed banning of social network users for appearing to plot criminal behavior, saying “Britain’s new attitude will help appease the quarrels between East and West over the future management of the Internet.”

[guardian: 1,2 / slashdot / image: techdirt.]

Heck, here’s a hint:

if China approves of your actions, you’ve probably made the wrong choice.