U.S. "supercop" Bill Bratton, visiting Britain to advise the government in the aftermath of riots earlier this year, said on Tuesday he was against the idea of shutting down social media services during times of civil unrest.
Police and politicians said rioters and looters had coordinated their actions and used services such as Blackberry Messenger and Twitter to incite trouble during the large-scale disorder which swept Britain in August.
Prime Minister David Cameron said at the time Britain might consider disrupting online social networking during any future trouble, and senior figures from Twitter and Research in Motion, which owns Blackberry, were summoned by politicians last month to discuss the issue.
However Bratton, former police chief in New York, Los Angeles and Boston, where he oversaw dramatic falls in street crimes gaining him the "supercop" moniker, cautioned against such a move, saying it would badly impact on "good people."
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