Always nice to see when democracies learn a digital trick from autocracies.

Exhibit A: Zavilia.com, a site of unknown ownership which aims to crowdsource the identification of British rioters and pass along the info to police.

Exhibit B: Gerdab.ir, a site set up in 2009 by The Information Center of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which aimed to crowdsource the identification of pro-democracy demonstrators.

If there was ever an argument for the ethical neutrality of digital tools, I guess this is it. The meaning of a tool is defined by the use and affordances can serve to protect civil society (giving Zavilia the benefit of the doubt here) or target it.