Research In Motion simply can’t catch a break. Last month, they had to axe thousands of employees. After a few fizzled product launches, the fledgling company seemed to rally behind the only thing exciting to come out of RIM in awhile: the new BBM, only to see it become an instrumental part of London rioters organizing their protests.
RIM stepped in and pledged support to the UK police, offering to help identify who was using BBM to incite the violent riots that continue to explode across London. That move backfired too, as the RIM website was hacked shortly thereafter by a team of hackers calling themselves “TeaMpoisoN.”
The hackers posted a message to RIM urging them to cease helping the UK police, whom, they argued, are guilty of arresting innocent people to look more competent. They also threatened to release the employee information stored on RIM’s database to the public if the company did not comply with their request.
BBM has received more blame in organizing the riots than its social network counterparts Twitter and Facebook, partly because BlackBerrys are used by 37 percent of 16-24 year olds in the UK.
[via Gizmodo]
