What I will make a note of, however, is the disturbing notion that public disorder gives Western countries an excuse to crack down on social networks and mobile communications. British PM David Cameron called for stopping "suspected rioters spreading online messages". As Canada's CBC News put it in a very disjointed article:
When social media helped protesters organize and overthrow corrupt regimes in the Arab world earlier this year, while also providing citizen journalism when mainstream media was shut out, it was lauded as a tool of democracy.
However, when the same methods are used in a scenario like Britain, they are seen as disturbing, says Megan Boler, a media studies professor in Toronto.
More to the point, when social media are used for dissent in the West, we want to censor them, and worse. In an astonishing decision, two UK men were given four-year prison terms for inciting violence via the social media, even though it couldn't actually be proved that anything they posted had had any effect on anyone (CNN).
Social media censorship is already upon us, however. Remember a while back when I wrote about San Francisco's BART police shooting a man? They recently did it again, and when people gathered to protest, BART shut down cell phone service at their stations.
So when the Egyptian government, or the Iranians, censor Twitter to stop popular protests against the regime, we abhor it as horrible censorship and a human rights violation. When California or the UK does it, we, um.
Although to be fair, this double standard is a bit more complicated than that. After all, when Iran blocks Internet use, they're mostly doing it using technology we sold them.
Having said that, it's all still a little ironic.
No comments:
Post a Comment