The social media revolution that was garnered international praise in bringing down Egypt’s government is now being blamed for contributing to the turmoil in London — and British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the government is looking into banning people suspected of being involved from social media sites:
– In response the this week’s riots in London following the death of Mark Duggan, David Cameron has told parliament that the government is looking to ban people from popular social networking sites if they are suspected of plotting criminal activity. It is a popular notion that Blackberry’s BBM and Twitter have played a huge role in fanning the flames unrest in London.
Cameron said he would meet with Facebok and Twitter to discuss whether it is possible to limit the spread on online messages in connection with acts of rioting, looting or other criminal activity.
It looks like Cameron is taking a leaflet out of NYPD’s book and exaggerating it a bit. Social media isn’t the only thing Cameron is after, he is also requesting that broadcasters hand over unused footage to police in connection with the riots in order to bring more criminals to justice, which has been vehemently protested when attempted previously.
Of the riots in connection to social media, Cameron had this to say:
Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality. I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers. Police were facing a new circumstance where rioters were using the BlackBerry Messenger service, a closed network, to organise riots. We’ve got to examine that and work out how to get ahead of them.
But can it work? politics.co.uk:
Technology experts have warned that the government would only be able to secure its objective by banning individuals from social media, closing off social media sites or shutting down the internet in a given location.
The first option requires every social media firm to cooperate with the government. Even if that were achievable, individuals would still be able to create a new account.
The second option is often adopted in China but is readily side-stepped by those familiar with social media while the final option – to shut down a whole region’s internet access – would be so drastic and far-reaching that it would require highly controversial new powers to implement.
Even then, actual use of the power could create immense anger in the online community, threaten innocent users and raise serious questions about freedom of speech.
But social media experts and free speech campaigners have rejected the idea, saying it is an impractical knee-jerk response that is akin to moves by Arab rulers to block online communications during this year’s pro-democracy uprisings
“Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organised via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill,” Mr Cameron told Parliament.
“And when people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them. So we are working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”
Mr Cameron did not specify whether this would involve shutting down the sites for all people in an affected area or trying to block specific individuals from using the sites.
The conservatives seem to have the support of the Labour Party for this proposal, with shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis telling British media “free speech is central to our democracy but so is public safety and security”.
………..Facebook has responded, saying it has already taken steps to remove “credible threats of violence” related to the riots.
Tiphereth Gloria, digital and social strategist at GPY&R Sydney, said blaming social networks for the speed and ease of communications and blocking them was the digital equivalent of shooting the messenger.
She compared the move to the shutdown of the Egyptian internet in January – an effort to quell the anti-government uprisings. The move was quickly subverted by internet companies such as Twitter which allowed people to phone in to a messaging service with their comments, which were then tweeted out with the #egypt hashtag.
“For British politicians to block or attempt to censor social channels, they are exhibiting the same traits as Egypt’s totalitarian regime,” she said. “They would do better in funding for more police and using social channels to get their own messages out.”
The Telegraph’s Sebastian Payne:
It is the internet’s best (and sometimes worst) quality that the flow of information is unrestricted. Close down one network and rioters will find another way to instantly communicate. Mr Cameron ignores the plain fact that censoring anything online is very difficult.
Take RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger. The text-messaging-on-steroids network has been described as the key mechanism for spreading discourse. A private and encrypted service, how can Mr Cameron possibly plan to ‘stop’ it? He has no jurisdiction over RIM’s headquarters in Ontario, Canada. He has no idea where the specific information is stored. The boffins at GCHQ could spend an eternity cracking RIM’s encryption algorithms. The Prime Minister is even disregarding his own government: Westminster special advisors simply couldn’t cope without their trusty smartphones.
David Cameron’s ill-advised comments ignore the overwhelming goodwill that the internet has enabled in the aftermath of the rioting. Everywhere affected has had a successful clean up propelled by an online campaign. This photo of Clapham Junction’s ‘broomstick army’ is testament to that spirit. Another touching highlight is a fundraising blog set up by three marketing interns for Aaron Biber, an 89-year-old barber from Tottenham whose shop was trashed in the riots. So far, Keep Aaron Cutting has raised £25,027.14.
These are just two examples out of thousands. All over England this week, individuals have offered up themselves on the internet to help in any way they can. Despite what some of the volunteers may say, this is the biggest and best implementation of Big Society David Cameron could ever ask for.
The AP:
The Globe and Mail’s Technology Columnist Ivor Tossell:
Throwing his digital lot in with Hosni Mubarak is hardly a flattering comparison for Mr. Cameron. But his choice of target reflects a very real public unease with the way social networks seem to inspire people to action.
For vast swathes of the population, social networks remain new and foreign – and foreigners always make good scapegoats. As governments and citizens alike grasp for explanations amidst riot and revolt, attention always goes to the odd factor out. Whether they deserve that wariness is another question entirely.
For one thing, the role of social media in the Arab uprisings may have been overstated in the first place….
….The question of whether the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt could have succeeded without social networks was never settled. Pundits kicked around the notion that the Internet could enable a gentler sort of revolution, before events in Libya rendered it grimly absurd. Facebook intervention was out; NATO intervention was back in.
Fast forward to Britain this week, when headlines announced that disaffected youth used the communication tools at their disposal, and that many of these happened to be the BlackBerry. (Pity the marketing people at RIM, who must have thought their branding woes couldn’t have gotten worse.) But to suggest that the BlackBerry radically expedited, let alone caused, the rioting doesn’t pass the sniff test. Putative rioters had televisions, phones and eyes. They would have figured it out.
The truth about social networks is that for all their potential, they’re more nuanced than grand news narratives give them credit for. They’re not broadcast mechanisms that drive home the same idea to everyone at once. We already have those mediums, of course, and they’ve proved exceedingly potent at inciting mass action.
“No one interacts with Facebook or Twitter; they interact with their corner of Facebook or Twitter,” says Ethan Zuckerman, a researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, and a close observer of the Arab uprisings. “What social media can do is reinforce the idea that a behaviour is common.”
AND:
That behaviour might be looting, but it might also be volunteer street clean-ups, another one of the less-reported group activities that social networking enabled this week.
In the end, it’s the frightened reaction of states themselves that turns social networks into such heroes and bogeymen. The profile of Facebook in Egypt’s mass demonstrations, for instance, was greatly amplified by the fact that the besieged government moved to cut it off.
Cracking down on citizens’ communications in times of crisis would put Mr. Cameron in the company of a large and unsavoury bunch of autocrats. Panicking in the face of an unfamiliar and hard-to-control technology is a time-honoured response for governments and citizens alike. Making a scapegoat of them only enhances their mythos.
It won’t be long before he finds out there’s no use shooting the instant messenger.
(Read it in its entirety.)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.