Youth Use Facebook to Organise Riot

There's an intriguing claim here that young Muslims in a suburb of Sydney in Australia, angered by the actions of the New South Wales Police's 'Middle Eastern organised crime squad', used Facebook to 'rally and organise' participants in a riot in early September.

A representative of NSW police said that laws preventing the use of a mobile to call or text others to incite a riot failed to cover social networking sites such as Facebook, which meant that those who posted derogatory messages about the police could not be prosecuted:

“It’s not as simple as prosecuting anyone who sends a message or posts a message online, there needs to be a direct progression from the message in order to be able to prosecute an individual. Singling out individuals at this point would be virtually impossible.”

In another report, Detective Chief Superintendent Ken McKay of the Middle Eastern organised crime squad also complained about 'the general lack of respect young people from all backgrounds have for authority'.

I wonder why that might be? Auburn sounds like a tough area but presumably the lack of respect has nothing to do with last year's record level of complaints against NSW Police?

VIDEO: Angry crowd turns on riot police