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UK To Shut Down Social Networks?
Stoobalou writes "In a move worthy of China's communist regime, UK PM David Cameron wants to shut down social networks whenever civil unrest rears its head in Britain's towns and cities. Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron said, 'Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were, organized via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. 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.'" So far I haven't heard anyone blame the Rock 'n Roll music, but if social networks aren't a good enough culprit, you could also try blaming video games.
Worthy of China? Sure, but Egypt was the first time that came to mind while watching this disgraceful session live... that didn't work too well BTW.
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
As soon as people started muting shutting down Blackberry Messenger, I had a bad feeling that this bullshit would follow.
The politicos don't understand the role that social media and internet communications play in people's lives. They wouldn't suggest shutting down the POTS network, or the postal service. Well, actually, that's giving them too much credit. They'd probably suggest exactly that.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
Mr Cameron, the problem starts with the fact that those criminals can READ and WRITE. This is a risk we can no longer allow!
Please, for the sake of our lives, CLOSE ALL SCHOOLS IMMEDIATELY before they can release EVEN MORE CRIMINALS upon us!
What on gods earth?
I was watching the debate live, and the feel of the speech was really not like this at all. Throughout twitter and facebook were praised, especially things like the london clean up efforts organized through twitter. In fact it was somewhat reassuring to see that they sort of knew what they were talking about. The measures talked about were primarily disabling masts in rioting areas so that communications would be ceased, nowhere near 'banning' social networks. Honestly, the feel of the speech was aimed towards leveraging them for good. It was said that they would be talking to them directly to see if together they could tackle issues, such as images/videos glorifying the acts.
we are working... to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services
Article title:
Cameron threatens to shut down UK social networks
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-08/11/david-cameron-social-media "Prime Minister David Cameron has told parliament that he is investigating whether to stop people communicating via social networking sites ****if they are known to be planning criminal activity****."
What the fuck has happened to all the western governments and what do they think they'll be able to achieve with increasingly draconian police state style laws? It boggles the mind. What will the puppet masters do once they've finished stringing up the puppets. It's not as if they don't have all the power they need to do all sorts of nasty things as it is. Why do they keep pushing for more? It makes no sense. It'd be like Bill Gates with all his billions scheming to mug people on the way home from work to increase his wealth. Meanwhile they let the economy fail and public infrastructure, education and health crumble.Gated communities aren't much good to you if there's no one left to buy things from. Idiots.
And the goddamn tech-bashing? What the fuck? On the one hand money frittered away on Internet services no one needs (see Australia for a prime example) and on the other lock down the net with fucked up filters that make it useless and stifle the very freedoms that have made it a success. What have these people been smoking?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Those situations have absolutely no baring on what happened here in the UK and you can't compare them. In those countries, they were actively uprising against a political struggle and the whole of the nation was behind the movement. In the case of the UK riots, it was essentially a load of complete reprobates wanting to cause as much trouble as possible and loot some free shit from houses and business. The feeling over here, on the whole, is one of utter disgust and I would imagine that most people in the UK would support any actions that could prevent the spread of violence if it can be justified. This might be a step too far, but as someone above me mentioned, it's only being discussed at the moment. Twitter was a complete nightmare throughout the ordeal, with fake and unsubstantiated reports being broadcast and getting people worked up for absolutely no reason.
There was nothing in his speech about shutting down networks, merely targeting those inciting violence and disorder.
In that respect, it's bringing social networking in line with other UK media which are also bound not to incite violence etc. It's certainly not a shutdown of a service in any way.
That is only true if you have a multitude of independently-controlled routes data can take to travel from one point to another with no one central point that can fail, either accidentally or deliberately. That was the original idea of how the Internet would be constructed, but it isn't how it works today, at least not on the consumer side. So, unless you have multiple connections not controlled by a single entity coming into your house (and a government counts as a controlling entity, so getting connections from multiple providers under its jurisdiction doesn't count), and, unless the site you want to visit is networked the same way, your statement means nothing.
Actually, this old meme, IMHO, is dangerous. It implies that censorship can't happen, which is most certainly not true. This leads people to take threats of censorship less seriously because they mistakenly think that the censorship efforts will be futile, which is also not true. Sure, someone with enough knowledge and determination might get around it, but most folks won't. Ask the North Korean authorities about that. I'm sure they know that information still leaks in, but enough people are prevented from getting at it to make their censorship regime effective.