China: Tweets Didn’t Start the Fire · Global Voices
John Kennedy

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has followed up its attack last week on microblogs with another one set against the backdrop of riots in London and English cities, putting the blame squarely on social networking sites (SNS) such as Twitter and Facebook. Or was that British Prime Minister David Cameron?
Many Chinese netizens, meanwhile, are sounding off like Americans (“Guns don't kill people…”), defending Sina Weibo, China's largest microblog service, as a platform which brings forth more truth about China than CCTV does. One can even imagine that if sites like Twitter and Facebook weren't already blocked, CCTV anchors might be responding to the backlash right now and sounding a lot like Cameron at it.
CCTV: Social networking sites and microblogs are fanning the flames as riots spread beyond London
Not that they'd need to, Chinese authorities have been casting the Internet as a national security threat since ethnic riots took place in Xinjiang in 2009. News from the UK now that Facebook and Flickr are being used to track down looters isn't really news [zh] to Chinese netizens, although People's Daily found it useful.
From a thread on Weibo [zh] in response to the news that English police have also begun arresting people on suspicion of using SNS to provoke rioters:
左5右4 要不要把咱的GFW借给他们
不知道我朝会不会也以此为借口来干掉微博这个眼中钉呢？
安思文 警方终于聪明起来了。。。。
我是发条是我 建议英国警方向中国政府学习维稳方法！
Turning back to CCTV and its easy-on cosmetic remedy for social unrest, discussions elsewhere [zh] on Sina Weibo have gotten into whether or not the broadcaster sees microblogs as the competition, or if something else is at play, but don't offer much in the way of a response to CCTV's charges. Sina Weibo's rumor problem is well-documented and things have only gotten worse since the Jiang Zemin non-death debacle early last month.
李允翔 哎！微薄传播真相的能力太大！个个地区的政府部门这一阵又丑事百出。
Juny徐 转发此微博:这些都是托词是借口。因为有关部门已经注意到了微博传播真相，发掘真相求真相的巨大威力。他们怕了。于是在一切都还可控的时候狠狠政治微博，免得老是让他们日子过的不安稳，数钱不痛快……
怒海争疯001 靠，原来都是推特，脸谱搞的事！强烈建议万恶的英帝学我天朝的GFW
莲篷子 这套伎俩太熟悉了，估计会变换花样，反正不管从什么角度来黑微博的，绝对都是相关部门干的。
There don't seem to be many supporters of CCTV's position to be found on Weibo currently. Perhaps they're self-censoring.
Instead of pinning fault for the riots on Twitter's inability to deliver effective community services, UK-based journalist Pin Lu grants [zh] that racial tension and economic disparity are factors to consider in trying to determine what fueled the Tottenham riots, but ends with:
这次骚乱的直接导火线是伦敦警方枪杀一名黑人青年Mark Duggan，星期六死者家属朋友到 Tottenham Hale警署门口和平示威，到了晚上却演变成了打砸抢，同时警方只在街道一头组成人墙拦截，对于几十米远的犯罪活动却不介入阻止。这样的画面整个晚上都在电视上，显然鼓励了其他人第二天照样学样。
警方不主动出手制止犯罪活动，一方面是警力薄弱，一方面是缺乏决断。伦敦警方目前处于群龙无首的状态，警察总长和负责反恐的副总长刚刚因为窃听手机留言案辞职，其它高层都在渡假。同时伦敦市长、内务大臣、副首相、首相都在海外渡假。对于这一突发事件，本来就没有准备，发生之后恐怕也没人拍板迅速处理，指望骚乱者自行散去。结果却是刚好相反，两天之内暴力蔓延，警方处于手忙脚乱、左支右拙中，更加无法对付骚乱者，于是鼓励更多人参与打劫，陷入恶性循环中。
在英国的政治环境中，对付这样的骚乱本来应该是保守党政府的强项，但是这次骚乱却让联合政府措手不及，卡梅伦迟了一天回国，就对他的声誉造成了很大影响。如果不能立刻平息骚乱的话，卡梅伦的首相位置恐怕就坐不长了。