6 events that have gone viral on social media in 2023 and caused chaos - from London carol service to riots

A church in London has been forced to cancel its Christmas carol service after the event went viral on TikTok and thousands of people attended, causing overcrowding.

St Peter's Church in Bethnal Green, east London, has run annual carol services for local residents in its Columbia Road building during each week in December for more than a decade, but no more can go ahead this year as too many people attended a previous event. The church reverend said it presented a "danger to public safety" to continue with the events after 7,000 people attended the most recent service, when a video about the event went viral on hugely popular social media platform TikTok.

Usually, on every Wednesday in the lead up to Christmas, the church carries out a sing-a-long in the street, where a local church piano would be wheeled outside, which is intended to be small. An archdeacon would then lead a crowd, usually of around 200 people, in songs like We Three Kings and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. This year however, ahead of the Wednesday December 6 carol service, thousands of people attended the area and crowded out the carollers, causing concerns about public safety. As a resukt, the remaining two services of the year have been cancelled.

Reverend Heather Atkinson, vicar of St Peter's, said in a statement: "With regret we formally announce that carols will not be taking place on Wednesday 13 and 20 December on Columbia Road this year. The crowds of over 7,000 present last week were of such volume on the road that there was a danger to public safety. We are grateful to God and to those working at the event that there were no serious injuries.

"Columbia Road carols has been a great partnership between the shopkeepers on the road, the local community and the parish church. As the church we cherish these relationships. This decision is in support of our community which had become dangerously overrun. Furthermore, this decision is on the strong advice of the police and local authority. We sincerely hope that the shops will now be able to remain open on Wednesday evenings."

Shops in Columbia Road, known for the city's "finest flower market" and often frequented by social media influencers, will remain open every Wednesday before Christmas for late-night shopping from 5pm to 9pm.

But, this is not the first time a viral social media video has led to a negative situation occurring. Here, we take a look back at examples of when social media sites have done more harm than good around the world.

London looting

On Wednesday August 9, London Mayor Sadiq Khan warned people to stay away from London’s famous shopping street, Oxford Street, during that day amid apparent plans being circulated on social media site TikTok for people to carry out crime there. People did not listen to Khan's warning, and shops were looted on the street on that day. Police said by 8.15pm nine people had been arrested, and 34 issued with dispersal orders. This led to the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, condemning people who use social media sites like TikTok to organise disruption and anti-social behaviour, and he also called such actions “appalling” and “unacceptable”.

A TikTok spokeswoman said: “We have zero tolerance for content facilitating or encouraging criminal activities. We have over 40,000 safety professionals dedicated to keeping TikTok safe – if we find content of this nature, we remove it and actively engage with law enforcement on these issues.”

Mizzy's anti-social behaviour

TikTok prankster Mizzy O'Garro, real name Bacari-Bronze O’Garro, caused chaos in the spring by posting a range of videos on social media showing him engaging in various forms of anti-social behaviour. In one video, he walked in a stranger's house uninvited, causing panic for the home owner. In another video, he approached another stranger and took her dog from her. He was brought before the court for his actions, and was then who was banned by police from uploading videos to social media without consent - a criminal behaviour order (CBO) he breached. In November, he was sentenced to to 18 weeks’ detention in a young offenders' institution.

Car thefts

In May, The New York post reported that there had been a sharp uptick in the theft or damage of cars in the United States which had been linked to viral videos. These videos, which were posted to TikTok and other social media platforms, taught people how to start Kia and Hyundai cars with USB cables, therefore exploiting a security vulnerability in some models sold in the U.S. without engine immobilizers, a standard feature on most cars since the 1990s preventing the engine from starting unless the key is present. Hyundai tried to work with TikTok and other platforms to remove the videos, but new ones continued to be made and more thefts occurred, in what was dubbed a performance crime.  YouTube also removed videos depicting what became known as the “Kia Challenge”.

However, Ben Rathe TikTok spokesperson pushed back on assertions that many of the dangerous challenges mentioned in news reports had reached mass popularity on the platform. In a statement, they said: “There is no evidence any of these challenges ever ‘trended’ on TikTok, and there is a clear documented history that many challenges falsely associated with TikTok pre-date the platform entirely."

Shoplifting

Back in September, shoplifters were using TikTok to share tips for stealing items - and even shared advice on which stores to shoplift from. The videos appeared on the social media site under the search term ‘borrow tip and tricks'. and have since been banned by TikTok. Business owners claimed thieves were filming videos of themselves stealing their products in order to upload the video to social media and called on the government to do more to help them. Various big name stores, including Tesco, Sainsbury's, Waitrose and the Co-op agreed to fund a scheme called Project Pegasus this year. This will see them pay police to scan shoplifters' faces through the Police National Database, which uses facial recognition technology. It is hoped that by joining together in this project, the stores will all see a reduction in the number of thefts of products from their shelves. 

TikTok states in their community guidelines that: “We do not permit anyone to exploit our platform to take advantage of the trust of users and bring about financial or personal harm. We remove content that deceives people in order to gain an unlawful financial or personal advantage, including schemes to defraud individuals or steal assets.” However, it would appear that users are able to bypass their guidelines by using the word “borrow” and a replacement for the word “steal”.

In addition, according to TikTok, they have a zero tolerance policy for content facilitating or encouraging criminal activities, including theft. But, they admit that they won't catch every instance of violative content, but say that it is wrong to categorise content of this nature as a TikTok-specific issue as it can be found on other platforms.

The worldwide riots

Riots have happened in numerous places this year - most notably the Paris riots which happened in May. The French president Emmanuel Macron levelled the blame for the disorder at TikTok and Snapchat. Jean-Marie Vilain, the mayor of Viry-Châtillon, told Spring that “once the riots started, TikTok became a tool to show, here, this is what I'm capable of doing. Can you do better?" He added that he believes seeing acts of destruction widely shared on TikTok "became the norm" for some people. TikTok users sharing this content who spoke to Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation correspondent, as part of a BBC documentary called 'The TikTok Effect' also said the same.

What has TikTok said about viral videos that cause issues?

Speaking about previously about videos which are posted on the platform which then become harmful in some way, TikTok said that the platform has more than 40,000 "safety professionals" who use technology to moderate content, with the "vast majority" of videos with harmful misinformation never receiving a single view. They added: “Prioritising safety is not only the right thing to do, it makes business sense," the spokesperson said. The company also said it collaborates with academics, law enforcement agencies and other experts to improve its processes.