Governments battle to come to grips with new reality

To what extent governments are battling to come to grips with the new reality of social media was illustrated by a meeting last week between British officials and representatives of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry to discuss voluntary ways to limit or restrict the use of social media to combat crime and during periods of civil unrest. It came in the wake of threats during recent riots in Britain by prime minister David Cameron that government might seek powers to bar suspected troublemakers from using social media and other digital communications tools.

Home minister, Theresa May, reportedly said that the aim was not to “discuss restricting Internet services,” but instead to “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behaviour.”

A spokeswoman for Ms. May said the government “would not be seeking any additional powers”, which is a softening on earlier positions – amonghe  others by Mr. Cameron when he said in an emergency parliamentary debate that “when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. 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.”

Police acting commissioner Tim Godwin also told parliament’s home affairs committee that the police wanted to disable Twitter at the height of the riots and may seek the power to do so in future.

Although attitudes might have softened somewhat, last week’s discussions were still aimed at reeling in the social media and strengthening the hand of law enforcement in gathering information from those networks, according to news reports.

The dilemma involved in the situation is illustrated by the fact that, in the wake of social-media-driven revolutions in, among others,  a number of Arab states, Western countries like Britain are now seemingly considering similar policies to those they have criticised in totalitarian and one-party states.

Mr. Cameron had called for stronger controls on social media after nimble, smartphone-armed rioters and looters used the networks to outmanoeuvre the police. But while his call drew an outcry in some quarters, it also received heartfelt applause in others, where restoring order was seen as a higher priority than the rights of social networkers.

The officials and the executives of the social-media companies met in private in government offices. The companies declined, beyond carefully written statements, to say what specific new measures they would be taking in cooperation with the British police and government.

One company representative did say they discussed how far the networks might be willing to bend privacy rules to assist the police in pursuing online criminal activity. Twitter, he said, giving an example, could consider compelling people to use their real names instead of anonymous handles.

But on Friday a Twitter spokesman, Sean Garrett, said in a tweet that, “Twitter is not considering requiring real names and the meeting was not a “negotiation.” There was no immediate response to a message seeking further comment.

Research In Motion, owner of the BlackBerry brand has already agreed to provide the British police with information from the BlackBerry Messenger network — used by many rioters to organise and strategise — under certain circumstances. It might consider allowing “protocols” for easier access in future.

RIM has previously negotiated with Saudi Arabia and India to allow some monitoring of users’ messages.

The police were, according to some reports, also considering using social-media-analysis software tools to parse enormous quantities of data available online for signs of future unrest.

The talks have left some freedom-of-speech and information organisations uneasy

with one group cautioning that such secret negotiations came “with no judicial review or accountability”.

“It’s not about social media, it’s about the state of the nation. Instead of talking about our great difficulties, we’re talking about the medium,” another spokesperson said.

Padraig Reidy, news editor of Index on Censorship said at the time of the riots and the parliamentary debate about possible moves to block access to the Internet and mobile phone networks “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should. These things weren’t caused by Twitter or BlackBerry.”

Index on Censorship said that the police should be allowed access to messages related to specific investigations, but should not be permitted to monitor or suspend communications.

Britain is also not the only place where BlackBerry Messenger has come under scrutiny from law enforcement officials and politicians over its tight security. After being threatened with a ban on its services in countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Research In Motion has made certain concessions.

In the USA a White House terrorism strategy released early in August said Facebook, Twitter and other social networks aid in advancing violent extremist narratives and should be monitored by government. While much of the document focused on al Qaeda it also refers to domestic terrorists, neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic groups and a broad range of ideologies that  promote radicalisation.

In the meantime concerns are mounting about how to find a balance between citizens’ privacy rights and security agencies’ desire to collect and analyse information that is, more or less, in the public domain.