A cursory glance at The Daily Mail’s front page headlines often reveals a permanent state of fury about one of five issues:
(a) Hoodies;
(b) Young people;
(c) Anything that might have an effect on property prices;
(d) People lighting outdoor fires without the express permission of the local council; and
(e) The internet and social media.
Admittedly, it’s a rare event that sucks in all of these issues into a maelstrom, but the August Riots across England managed to do it.
It wasn’t long before David Cameron sprung up to join the anti-internet chorus. Following on from where Tony Blair and Gordon Brown left off, Cameron wasted no time in suggesting a meaningless and unenforceable solution to a public issue.
In this case - that social media services like Blackberry Messenger, Twitter and Facebook could be shut down temporarily to prevent disorder during future unrest.
The call was swiftly rebuffed by Google’s Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, who claims that “It’s a mistake to look into the mirror and try to break the mirror”.
Anyone who still thinks shutting down the internet is an effective way of containing social disorder should probably have a chat with the growing line of deposed Middle-Eastern dictators
The Master Switch and the New Delusion
The debate about government restrictions on social media fits into a wider discussion about who controls the internet. Earlier in 2011 two major books were published on the theme.
In The Master Switch, Tim Wu points to history and shows how every information industry has been taken over by a ruthless monopoly. He argues that as most of the world's media is now travelling on one single network, there is a risk of the internet being ruled by one corporate leviathan.
It doesn’t take a massive leap of thought to imagine that the resulting centralisation of power by a single corporate might not be great for freedom of speech.
Internet freedom of speech is a theme explored by Evengy Morozov in The Net Delusion: How not to liberate the World. Written as a counter-punch to digital utopians, Morozov works to demolish ideas about internet freedoms, which he argues are an illusion. Authoritarian regimes from Russia to China are using the internet to stifle democracy, planting propaganda and censor their citizens.
The issues raised in both books highlight some of the trends and arguments (valid and not-so-valid) challenging the free flow of information. One person’s freedom of expression could be another’s breach of copyright.
Nevertheless, ultimately there will be more clashes over the freedom of people to communicate what they like, when they like over the internet.
The freedom to ‘be an idiot’ online
One of the unintended consequences of the recent riots might be the greater realisation that information over the internet is incredibly open, searchable and preserved for a long time.
Those on trial for looting and rioting found their defence fatally undermined by the fact that they had either tried to sell stolen items online, were caught on YouTube setting fire to a building or were recorded trying to start a riot on Facebook using their real profiles (although no-one turned up to the infamous ‘Northwich Town Facebook’ riot, the ‘organisers’ received four-year jail sentences).
Just as the internet allows people to say and do whatever they like online, police forces can also use the internet and online monitoring facilities to easily record evidence of intended crimes.
The internet cannot be viewed as the one-way street of expression it once was. In the debate between cyber-utopians and cyber-realists, the latter might have painted the more realistic picture of the future.
