Twitter To Meet With UK Government About Riots

"Twitter has confirmed that it will meet with the UK Home Secretary on Thursday, after being called in for discussions over the role it played in the recent UK riots. Twitter will send a representative to the meeting scheduled for August 25. Both Facebook and RIM will also send representatives to the meeting in regards to their effects on the riots."

Comments

Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

When it happens in Egypt and Libya, its an amazing tool for freedom of speech and the spread of democracy.

When it happens in your own back yard, its a problem.

Re:Double Standard

[MakinBacon]

There's a fine line between staging a revolution and looting an electronics store, my friend.

Re:Double Standard

[no-body]

Any social problems in that area - like high unemployment, low standard of living, educational/career dead-end. other types of violence/repression, possibly from government agencies?

And - if so, what are the solutions of the local governments?

One person protesting there was interviewed and stated that news media would not care unless fuss would be created.
 
A fine line.... right.

Re:Double Standard

[AngryDeuce]

With the speed with the government can clamp down on the citizenry with it's resources, it's only fair that the population have access to the same level of coordination. I think we would all agree that all societies have the right of self-determination, and if self-determination takes the form of open rebellion and revolution, that's the price we pay for democracy.

These days, freedom to communicate via the internet and text messaging is almost as important as the right to assemble, and definitely as vital. The powers that be are using their authority in order to force it's agenda on the citizenry. Whether they agree or not, if the citizenry decides to rise up against them and defy their authority, is immaterial. Government exists at the will of the people, not the other way around.

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the key difference is whether NATO supports it by shooting at the police and dropping weaponry on the looters or not.

Re:Double Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

The people are from the UK (my original home). 'social' problems you describe appear to be economic problems.

These folks were stealing Hi-Def TV's and IPads, not food or medical supplies.

I've lived in areas of south east Asia where a week's worth of income support from the UK is, in real terms, more than two months of wages for someone lucky enough to have a job (90%+ unemployment). I'm sure that there are other, far worse off places than that!

The punishment should be to send them to work on community projects in the developing world. Supplying fresh drinking water, building schools. Not only would they realize the insignificance of their hardships, they'd have character building experiences, working in teams making amazing differences to peoples lives with all the personal benefits that go with it.

Still, back on topic, they should have the right to organize peaceful protest, via any means they like. However, inciting riot and looting is a different matter.

Re:Double Standard

[mywhitewolf]

I'm disappointing you aren't willing to put your name against that comment Mr AC. Because IMO you're at least partially right. The kids can try and play the society game that we have laid out to them, or they can make their own rules and fight to have them apply instead. we like our rules so we apply them with force and fight back, but that doesn't make our society rules "right" any more then they are "wrong". there are winners and losers in any social contract, when the losers are sick of losing they stop playing by the rules, and the winners get angry because "but, we said that wasn't ok to do!". but pretending there is some "rules" to life that "everyone should follow" and those that don't are "evil scum" is ignorant to the complexity of even a basic animal let alone one as complicated as the exceptionally resourceful, extremely opportunistic naked ape.

if you've never had to rely on government handouts to eat, you're not in a position to condemn the actions of the less fortunate, its completely disheartening to have your survival reliant on a faceless entity who is willing and able to throw you to the dogs at a moments notice.

the riots may have occurred because people are selfish, but you can't stop people from being selfish, IMO social policy is what is wrong and what caused this issue. people are just people doing what they do to give them selves an advantage at life.

you're expected to pay into this society to help make things "better for everyone", and yet when you need help, then what? Imo this won't be the last high profile riot in western cultural hubs until the government gets a lot more social in their spending to offset the hardships that the financial crisis induces on the population.

Re:Double Standard

[Hognoxious]

Relative prosperity - is that the new name for envy?

Re:Other representatives

[bennomatic]

I heard most of those rioters wore shoes. Maybe shoe companies should be taken to task for all the malfeasance they enable.

Re:Other representatives

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how the gov'ts love to go blah blah blah blah instead of helping to fix the causes that caused people to want to riot in the first place. Plenty of $$$$$$ to flap gums but not actualy fix things

Re:Other representatives

[PopeRatzo]

And when did it become OK to shift responsibility and blame to anywhere and everywhere except the people who actually committed the crimes?

When a small group of banksters committed fraud to crash the world economy, ruining lives and pushing hundreds of millions of people into poverty or economic uncertainty.

Don't fool yourself. The biggest crimes are the ones where it's " OK to shift responsibility and blame to anywhere and everywhere except the people who actually committed the crimes". And the same people who paid for those crimes are going to pay for the crimes that occur when social contracts break down and civil violence occurs: everyone but the ones responsible.

Re:Other representatives

[Stevecrox]

It sounds close to the official number as quick glance at BBC news's website shows. Nothing to do with collusion, people keep talking about all of the CCTV camera's in the UK police have been identifying people through that. Most of the papers have also been printing pictures of rioters in an effort to identify them, there are about half a dozen stories of mothers turning in their kids when they saw the child's photo in a national paper.

This meeting is the higher ups way of looking like they are doing something to daily mail readers, I'm hoping nothing comes of it especially when you realise Twitter & Facebook were used by people to organise clean-ups and identify the rioters.

There has also been a lot of talk about the harshness of the punishments handed down to rioters. The UK doesn't require mobile phones to have Government available GPS tracking like the USA. You can only check-in with Facebook/Google latitude and not twitter.