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发帖数: 30882 | 1 英国首相卡梅伦威胁取缔黑莓手机和互联网络
来源: hls812 于 2011-08-15 05:08:38 [档案] [博客] 旧帖] [转至博客] [给我悄悄
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加跟贴 | 查看当前最热讨论主题 英国政府要掩盖什么，为什么不容许老百姓发声？
英国政府这笑话也越闹越大了吧
1
U.K. May Block Twitter, Blackberry Messaging Services in Future Riots
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-11/u-k-may-block-twitter-
David Cameron, the U.K. prime minister, said the government is considering
whether it should block social-networking websites and messaging services
during violent unrest after the country’s worst riots since the 1980s.
The government is working with police, the intelligence services and
companies 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,” Cameron said today in parliament. He
mentioned Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM)’s BlackBerry Messenger service as
one of the tools that were used by rioters.
Police have said they are investigating the use of social- networking
services such as those operated by Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and
BlackBerry Messenger. Three people were arrested by police in Southampton,
England, on suspicion of using social media and messaging to encourage
rioting.
“If you try to stop people communicating, you create more of a problem,”
said Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, an
organization promoting freedom of expression on the Internet. “People are
angry because their freedoms are threatened.”
RIM “welcomes the opportunity for consultation” with the British
government and other technology companies, according to an e-mailed
statement. RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, also said it continues to
respect both U.K. privacy laws and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers
Act, which allows police to gather encrypted information that might
otherwise be private as part of an investigation. Twitter spokespeople
couldn’t immediately be reached.
Temptations
Tactics such as blocking social networks invite comparisons with toppled
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, said Daniel Hamilton, director of Big
Brother Watch, a civil liberties group that argues for privacy and the
reduction of government monitoring. The U.K. government must “avoid the
temptation to engage in populist authoritarianism,” in response to the
riots.
All social media will be reviewed, Cameron’s spokesman Steve Field told
reporters. The government is still investigating how useful and practical
blocking the websites and services would be and hasn’t reached any
conclusion, he said.
More than 1,300 people have been arrested in the U.K. since the disorder
began on Aug. 6, with 888 of those in London.
“Free flow of information can be used for good, but it can also be used for
ill,” Cameron said today. “When people are using social media for
violence, we need to stop them.”
2
British PM Misses Point of Social Media, Threatens Ban
http://www.alltechienews.com/posts/british-pm-misses-point-of-s
British Prime Minister David Cameron joins the long line of powerful men who
totally miss the point of social media. In the wake of the London riots, he
has threatened to ban people convicted of rioting from social networks. Oh,
David.
Banning those convicted of crime from accessing social networks (the idea
being that they used such access to organize criminal activities) is no
different than banning the same criminals from accessing goose quills and
ink pots! It will have zero effect on crime, aside from criminalizing social
media itself.
Additionally, Cameron told Parliament he is going to hold meetings with
representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry's parent company
Research in Motion, "to discuss their responsibilities in this area." He
added that broadcasters have a "responsibility" to hand in their footage of
the riots. Mr. Cameron seems very concerned about responsibility. Well,
other people's responsibility anyway.
The most egregious flaw in Cameron's latest misfire is his clear lack of
understanding that social media, regardless of the froth-flecked eructations
of both its detractors and its partisans, is nothing more than another
communications tool. Each such tool has its specific shape and distinct
implications but in the end it allows people to speak to other people. What
Cameron is pursuing is, in effect, a ban on free speech.
What makes it worse, however, is the way Cameron has proposed the move to
the British parliament. This is how the Guardian characterized his
announcement. (The italics are mine.)
"David Cameron has told parliament that in the wake of this week's riots the
government is looking at banning people from using social networking sites
such as Twitter and Facebook if they are thought to be plotting criminal
activity."
What Cameron appears to be proposing is the creation of a thought crime. (I
forget. Where was Orwell from?)
Additionally, Cameron told Parliament he is going to hold meetings with
representatives from Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry's parent company
Research in Motion, "to discuss their responsibilities in this area." He
added that broadcasters have a "responsibility" to hand in their footage of
the riots. Mr. Cameron seems very concerned about responsibility. Well,
other people's responsibility anyway.
This sort of news is bad enough when it comes out of Zimbabwe or China, but
you rather expect it. To see it issuing from the yap of the British prime
minister is just depressing.
The Riots and How to Misunderstand Them
Misunderstanding the role of social media in the London riots is par for the
course. An intelligent, credible argument may exist out there somewhere,
but I haven't seen it. And if I haven't seen it, chances are, neither have
most people. (If you have, give it.)
Instead, our public discourse on the riots consists of two equally
preposterous narratives, fighting like dogs over the carcass of British
civic life.
The riots are a political expression of economic and racial dissatisfaction,
a function of justice denied.
It's the immigrants.
London Riots 2011 - Raw Footage of Mob Attacking... by mediafreaks3d
These are both ridiculous oversimplifications and provide an unfortunate
object lesson in how social media is as capable of disappointing us in our
time of need as any corporate news behemoth. The reason is the very one that
Cameron appears unable to understand: people power social media. In many
cases, social media is capable of leveraging the best we have to offer, but
sometimes it craps in the yard. Why? Again, it is powered by people, and
people, though often magnificent, are sometimes dumb as posts.
Among the privileged, white, well-healed members of the digerati, the riots,
because some of the rioters are dark-skinned, must be sociological
equations. The very notion that people can't be simple thugs because they're
black or Arabic is as asinine - and much more patronizing - as the notion
that they must be because they are. If you throw a brick, you may be making
a political statement. If you do so to break a window and get your mitts on
a handful of iPhones, you're a crook. It would take a bona fide Prisoner of
Sociology to argue otherwise.
On the other hand, the notion that the riots were caused by the presence of
immigrants is equally untenable. Neither is it born out by the country's
history. One of the earliest recorded riots, the "St. Scholastica" riot of
1315 was a booze-fueled fight of townies versus students; the Bawdy House
riots (1668) centered on whorehouses; you can probably figure out what the
London Gin riots of 1743 were about on your own and Spitalfields (1769) was
a labor riot. In fact, when foreigners and minorities were involved in riots
it was almost always as victims, as on Evil May Day (1517), in the anti-
Catholic Gordon Riots (1780), in the anti-Dissenter Priestly Riots (1791)
and the Notting Hill riots (1958). It wasn't until the Brixton riots of 1981
that anyone dark-complected was as likely to be seen throwing a brick than
getting hit by one.
If you are unable, or unwilling, to allow your immigrants to become - and
insist they do become - integral parts of the society in which they live,
that lack of investment, in time, will tell.
Stupid Ideas Are Contagious
My point is simple: the riots are not. You can neither explain away the
actions of criminal rioters with a psalter of half-understood free-
university concepts, nor can you reduce their actions to congenital
deficiencies in their race or culture. (In case I wasn't being clear, the
former means you're a bourgie twat; the latter, you're a hen-witted bigot.)
This "folk sociology" has also infected the attitude of the British
government, and its leader, toward the tools the rioters (not to mention
everyone else in the United Kingdom) use to talk to one another: social
networks. Prime Minister Cameron's proposal is as lunkheaded as any of the
cartoonish explanations for the riots you can find on those selfsame
networks.
Now, genius I may be, but I'm not beyond learning something new or even
changing my mind. So if you have a different point of view - on Cameron's
actions, on the use and abuse of social media or even on the riots as a
whole - have at it. Of course, I don't have to remind you, of all people, to
be a mensch, now do I? Naturally, I don't.
Cameron graphic by Donkey Hotey |
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