Two men told a jury they were joking when they wrote Facebook messages about looting PC World in Lancaster during last summer's riots.
Karl Manley, 28, and Stefan Johnson, 22, from Heysham pleaded not guilty at Lancaster Crown Court to using Facebook to encourage rioting or looting.
Mr Manley wrote "PC World Lancaster, 7.30pm. Let the looting begin. Could do with a new laptop" on Facebook.
Mr Johnson from Lancaster posted the same message on his Facebook status.
'No intention'
Both are accused of encouraging or assisting an offence of burglary to be committed, which they believed would happen.
Police officers went to the store after the message was posted about but no incidents took place, the court heard.
Mr Manley, a student, was arrested at his home on the same day, while Mr Johnson was detained three days later.
Mark Lamberty, prosecuting, said: "A place was specified, a specific time was set down and then, say the Crown, an encouragement and incitement to commit an offence of burglary.
"You will be familiar with the sort of scenes last August and the Crown will say this was designed to encourage it to happen in Lancaster."
Giving evidence, Mr Manley said he thought his status update would only been seen by his 500 Facebook friends.
"I had no intention of putting it out to the whole world," he said.
"At the time on Facebook there was loads of jokes going around and banter. Looking back now it was a mistake. I generally just thought of it as a bit of a joke amongst my friends.
"I was on holiday from work at the time, I was bored."
Mr Johnson, a data processor, replied to Mr Manley's post: "Ha ha ha. That is brilliant. Sorry but I am going to have nick that status!"
He told the jury: "I thought it was funny because Karl Manley is an innocent guy.
"It was just a sarcastic joke. Only because it came from Karl."
The trial continues.
