270,000 racist text messages fuelled Australian riots

Link: Racist SMS messages in Cronulla ‘numbered 270,000’. 19/10/2006. ABC News Online

An internal police report of last year’s riots at Cronulla in Sydney has found that more than 270,000 text messages promoting racial violence were sent in the days leading up to the violence.

The report also blames the media for helping to fuel the tensions in the city’s south last December.

The article doesn’t explain who sent the messages — whether it was a small number of sources inciting violence, or whether, for example, 100,000 people each sent 2.7ish texts to one another.