The trending cop: Twitter can detect riots faster than police

Twitter posts can help track riots and other violent events much before they are reported to the police, according to a study which shows that social media can be an invaluable source of information for law-enforcement officials.

An analysis of data taken from the London riots in 2011 showed that computer systems could automatically scan through Twitter and detect serious incidents, such as shops being broken into and cars being set alight, before they were reported to the UK Metropolitan Police Service.

The system, developed by researchers at Cardiff University in the UK, could also discern information about where the riots were rumoured to take place and where groups of youths were gathering.

Researchers believe that their work could enable police officers to better manage and prepare for both large and small scale disruptive events. “We have previously used machinelearning and natural language processing on Twitter data to better understand online deviance, such as the spread of antagonistic narratives and cyber hate,” said Pete Burnap from Cardiff University.

They used a series of machine-learning algorithms to analyse each of the tweets from the dataset, taking into account a number of key features such as the time they were posted, the location where they were posted and the content of the tweet itself. Results showed that the machinelearning algorithms were quicker than police sources in all but two of the disruptive events reported.