Twitter and RIM have come under fire as their services are being identified as the primary method by which rioters in London are communicating with each other.
Twitter has taken a hands off stance in saying it refuses to close Twitter accounts of rioters:
Everyone is for privacy and freedom of speech, but within the bounds of reason. If people are using your service to commit crimes and you have the ability to prevent them from doing so, it's your ethical obligation to do so.
Of course we are all aware of the Big Brother implications of limiting speech, but we aren't talking about political dissent here. We're talking about people rioting - stealing property and destroying property - for non-political reasons. (Let's call the London riots what they are, the accumulating result of the worldwide economic crisis that is leading to a psychological shift within populations and an increase in people's propensity to engage in radical behavior. Regardless of what sets people off, it's their underlying 'standard of living' and its deterioration that is allowing this kind of stuff to bubble up).
It's hard to imagine when you view the footage of the rioters that anyone would want to be associated with assisting them in their behavior. I get Twitter wanting to be seen as merely enabling communication (not censoring it), but enabling random property destruction and violence is no way to grow your brand.
Twitter had a HUGE opportunity to establish ethics as part of its brand (which is a good thing) and it blew it. The whole thing about keeping the information flowing is ridiculous - so if pedophiles start using Twitter they won't shut down their accounts? Of course they will. So they obviously have a line, it's just not clear what it is. Hooligans rioting obviously doesn't cross their line (and in my opinion that's bad for their brand).
We're all pissed off at government and we all fear big brother, and if one day a (just) revolution occurs we wouldn't want people cut off from things like Twitter. But the riots in London are not a revolution. They may be primed by socioeconomic variables, but nonetheless, right now it's just a bunch of hooligans behaving like idiots. Twitter should have the maturity to recognize that and recognized that in this scenario, helping the authorities would have been the right thing to do.
I have to say, as bad as the riots have been, it's quite a different phenomena when you have a population and police force that don't use guns. The level of violence seems to be much less than it otherwise would be.
Compare the London riots to the LA riots back in the 90s (I'd rather get caught in the London riots than in LA in the 90s).
Twitter has taken a hands off stance in saying it refuses to close Twitter accounts of rioters:
'Some tweets may facilitate positive change in a repressed country, some make us laugh, some make us think, some downright anger a vast majority of users. We don't always agree with the things people choose to tweet, but we keep the information flowing irrespective of any view we may have about the content.'
Everyone is for privacy and freedom of speech, but within the bounds of reason. If people are using your service to commit crimes and you have the ability to prevent them from doing so, it's your ethical obligation to do so.
Of course we are all aware of the Big Brother implications of limiting speech, but we aren't talking about political dissent here. We're talking about people rioting - stealing property and destroying property - for non-political reasons. (Let's call the London riots what they are, the accumulating result of the worldwide economic crisis that is leading to a psychological shift within populations and an increase in people's propensity to engage in radical behavior. Regardless of what sets people off, it's their underlying 'standard of living' and its deterioration that is allowing this kind of stuff to bubble up).
It's hard to imagine when you view the footage of the rioters that anyone would want to be associated with assisting them in their behavior. I get Twitter wanting to be seen as merely enabling communication (not censoring it), but enabling random property destruction and violence is no way to grow your brand.
Twitter had a HUGE opportunity to establish ethics as part of its brand (which is a good thing) and it blew it. The whole thing about keeping the information flowing is ridiculous - so if pedophiles start using Twitter they won't shut down their accounts? Of course they will. So they obviously have a line, it's just not clear what it is. Hooligans rioting obviously doesn't cross their line (and in my opinion that's bad for their brand).
We're all pissed off at government and we all fear big brother, and if one day a (just) revolution occurs we wouldn't want people cut off from things like Twitter. But the riots in London are not a revolution. They may be primed by socioeconomic variables, but nonetheless, right now it's just a bunch of hooligans behaving like idiots. Twitter should have the maturity to recognize that and recognized that in this scenario, helping the authorities would have been the right thing to do.
I have to say, as bad as the riots have been, it's quite a different phenomena when you have a population and police force that don't use guns. The level of violence seems to be much less than it otherwise would be.
Compare the London riots to the LA riots back in the 90s (I'd rather get caught in the London riots than in LA in the 90s).
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