This House would block access to social messaging networks during riots

Riots should not be tolerated in a free society as there are already legal and peaceful methods of dissenting such as through demonstrations, petitions, and contacting your representative in Parliament. It demonstrates a fundamental unwillingness to engage with not only the apparatus of the state, but society more generally. Rioters have no regard for the public, and the violence and damage they cause harms everyone. Riots tend to do little to actually challenge the state, but rather they tend to harm the most disadvantaged, those who happen to be in the vicinity of the mobs. The freedom of speech social media provides to its users is being fundamentally misused in the context of riots.[1] When speech is used to organize violence, it must be curtailed for the sake of society as individuals security and safety is more important that freedom of speech that is briefly curtailed. Violence damages long after the event whereas those who have their freedom of speech curtailed for a few hours can swiftly voice their opinions once the riot has ended and the block lifted.

[1] Thomson, A. and Hutton, R., “UK May Block Twitter, Blackberry Messaging Services in Future Riots”. Bloomberg. 11 August 2011. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-11/u-k-may-block-twitter-blackberry-messaging-services-in-future-riots.html    

Of course we do not want freedom of speech to be misused to incite and organise rioting and violence but that does not mean that it is always illegitimate. Riots may sometimes be the natural outgrowth of bad policy and a government that has been unwilling to listen to peaceful forms of protest. Disenfranchised groups may be forced in extremity to turn to these sorts of activities and the state should take heed when they occur instead of seeking to wield its power over the internet and mobile phones to crush dissent. This is what happened in the revolutions in the Arab world. When a riot does have a substantive cause then it is essential that social media is accessible as it is the way for the rioters to get their side of the story across. 

When riots are on-going then the police needs to act but the safety of everyone involved should be considered to be paramount. If a riot will not disperse peacefully then the police often find they need to use batons, water cannon, or even in extremis tear gas or rubber bullets. It is the police’s duty to bring back public order by stopping riots through these methods. However this should not be at the expense of a much more preventative approach that shutting down social media networks would allow. If during instances of rioting the police are able to prevent those rioters from encouraging their friends to join them so expanding the riots then this is the right course of action to take. Rioters used social media like activists, to outmanoeuvre the police targeting areas where there was little police presence. Cutting off their means of communication would make this much harder and less effective.[1] This has been used effectively in the past; the San Francisco BART, shut down mobile phones on its network to prevent protests which it feared could lead to clashes with commuters, it may well have been the reason why there were no such protests, but it did spark outrage over violations of freedom of speech.[2]

[1] O’Rourke, Simon, “Empowering protest through social media”, Edith Cowan University Research Online, 2011, http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=icr  P.51

[2] Cabanatuan, M., “BART admits halting cell service to stop protests”, SFGate, http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/BART-admits-halting-cell-service-to-stop-protests-2335114.php#ixzz2M7lxd9by

There is little evidence that cutting off the internet or mobile phone networks would be effective. Riots occurred before mobile phones and the internet were invented and spread just as worryingly. Cutting off access would be an inconvenience but little more than that. Blaming the technology is not helpful to finding the real solutions to preventing rioting which is engaging with the underlying problems.[1]

[1] Metcalf, J., and Taylor, M., “Technology has always been blamed in times of unrest”, guardian.co.uk, 7 December 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/07/technology-always-blamed-times-unrest

The police must try to stop riots from spreading and stop copycat rioting elsewhere. Knowledge of rioting happening elsewhere is often the Oxygen of riots; the riots in Manchester and elsewhere outside of London in 2011 were mostly as a result of media exposure. According to Greater Manchester Police chief Peter Fahy "A certain group of people saw what was happening in London and decided they seemed to be getting away with it. We knew what was absolutely critical was that there needed to be control of London. Because that was just creating more and more copycat violence up here."[1] Cutting off social media would have helped prevent the riots from spreading so ensuring that they remain small and a localised problem.

[1] Pilkington, D., “Rioting in London sparked 'copycat' behaviour”, The Independent, 14 November 2011. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rioting-in-london-sparked-copycat-behaviour-6262030.html

Preventing word from getting out through social media and stopping those who inevitably try to take advantage of the rioting to ferment violence elsewhere is not something the police should be doing. In a free country anyone should be allowed to report on what they are doing and on riots that are occurring. Moreover a shutdown would be ineffective at preventing the news getting out as the traditional media would still be broadcasting. In 270 interviews done by researchers into the riots more than 100 people said they heard about the riots through TV news, more than through social media.[1]

[1] Adegoke, Y., and Ball, J., “Twitter? Facebook? Rioters saw it on TV”, guardian.co.uk, 7 December 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/07/twitter-facebook-rioters-saw-it-on-tv

By using Twitter to signal the start of riots it attracts people to join the mob. People in riots generally look to those around them in order to see what is considered acceptable behaviour. As boundaries are crossed, such as the change from indiscriminate vandalism to looting, and reported on Twitter, the same behaviour echoes elsewhere. The lens through which rioters determine acceptable behaviour is expanded, so the chance of behaviours like looting rippling across the various mob groups within a locale increases. One escalation of violence becomes multiple escalations. Twitter is thus a serious danger to society during periods of social unrest and rioting, because it acts as a catalyst for further mayhem. By blocking Twitter governments are able to manage flashpoints and prevent them from expanding violence to other locations. This makes riot situations both less likely to escalate, and easier to break up.

Rioters will always find tools by which to organize. The internet is a remarkably fecund environment, one in which solutions to problems are quickly found. If the government were to block Twitter, enterprising demonstrators would quickly find an alternative. The violence will still escalate, and blocking out a website will fail to accomplish anything other than alienate Twitter users from the state and anger at its impositions.

Riots should not be tolerated in a free society as there are already legal and peaceful methods of dissenting such as through demonstrations, petitions, and contacting your representative in Parliament. It demonstrates a fundamental unwillingness to engage with not only the apparatus of the state, but society more generally. Rioters have no regard for the public, and the violence and damage they cause harms everyone. Riots tend to do little to actually challenge the state, but rather they tend to harm the most disadvantaged, those who happen to be in the vicinity of the mobs. The freedom of speech social media provides to its users is being fundamentally misused in the context of riots.[1] When speech is used to organize violence, it must be curtailed for the sake of society as individuals security and safety is more important that freedom of speech that is briefly curtailed. Violence damages long after the event whereas those who have their freedom of speech curtailed for a few hours can swiftly voice their opinions once the riot has ended and the block lifted.

[1] Thomson, A. and Hutton, R., “UK May Block Twitter, Blackberry Messaging Services in Future Riots”. Bloomberg. 11 August 2011. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-11/u-k-may-block-twitter-blackberry-messaging-services-in-future-riots.html    

Of course we do not want freedom of speech to be misused to incite and organise rioting and violence but that does not mean that it is always illegitimate. Riots may sometimes be the natural outgrowth of bad policy and a government that has been unwilling to listen to peaceful forms of protest. Disenfranchised groups may be forced in extremity to turn to these sorts of activities and the state should take heed when they occur instead of seeking to wield its power over the internet and mobile phones to crush dissent. This is what happened in the revolutions in the Arab world. When a riot does have a substantive cause then it is essential that social media is accessible as it is the way for the rioters to get their side of the story across. 

When riots are on-going then the police needs to act but the safety of everyone involved should be considered to be paramount. If a riot will not disperse peacefully then the police often find they need to use batons, water cannon, or even in extremis tear gas or rubber bullets. It is the police’s duty to bring back public order by stopping riots through these methods. However this should not be at the expense of a much more preventative approach that shutting down social media networks would allow. If during instances of rioting the police are able to prevent those rioters from encouraging their friends to join them so expanding the riots then this is the right course of action to take. Rioters used social media like activists, to outmanoeuvre the police targeting areas where there was little police presence. Cutting off their means of communication would make this much harder and less effective.[1] This has been used effectively in the past; the San Francisco BART, shut down mobile phones on its network to prevent protests which it feared could lead to clashes with commuters, it may well have been the reason why there were no such protests, but it did spark outrage over violations of freedom of speech.[2]

[1] O’Rourke, Simon, “Empowering protest through social media”, Edith Cowan University Research Online, 2011, http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=icr  P.51

[2] Cabanatuan, M., “BART admits halting cell service to stop protests”, SFGate, http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/BART-admits-halting-cell-service-to-stop-protests-2335114.php#ixzz2M7lxd9by

There is little evidence that cutting off the internet or mobile phone networks would be effective. Riots occurred before mobile phones and the internet were invented and spread just as worryingly. Cutting off access would be an inconvenience but little more than that. Blaming the technology is not helpful to finding the real solutions to preventing rioting which is engaging with the underlying problems.[1]

[1] Metcalf, J., and Taylor, M., “Technology has always been blamed in times of unrest”, guardian.co.uk, 7 December 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/07/technology-always-blamed-times-unrest

The police must try to stop riots from spreading and stop copycat rioting elsewhere. Knowledge of rioting happening elsewhere is often the Oxygen of riots; the riots in Manchester and elsewhere outside of London in 2011 were mostly as a result of media exposure. According to Greater Manchester Police chief Peter Fahy "A certain group of people saw what was happening in London and decided they seemed to be getting away with it. We knew what was absolutely critical was that there needed to be control of London. Because that was just creating more and more copycat violence up here."[1] Cutting off social media would have helped prevent the riots from spreading so ensuring that they remain small and a localised problem.

[1] Pilkington, D., “Rioting in London sparked 'copycat' behaviour”, The Independent, 14 November 2011. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/rioting-in-london-sparked-copycat-behaviour-6262030.html

Preventing word from getting out through social media and stopping those who inevitably try to take advantage of the rioting to ferment violence elsewhere is not something the police should be doing. In a free country anyone should be allowed to report on what they are doing and on riots that are occurring. Moreover a shutdown would be ineffective at preventing the news getting out as the traditional media would still be broadcasting. In 270 interviews done by researchers into the riots more than 100 people said they heard about the riots through TV news, more than through social media.[1]

[1] Adegoke, Y., and Ball, J., “Twitter? Facebook? Rioters saw it on TV”, guardian.co.uk, 7 December 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/07/twitter-facebook-rioters-saw-it-on-tv

By using Twitter to signal the start of riots it attracts people to join the mob. People in riots generally look to those around them in order to see what is considered acceptable behaviour. As boundaries are crossed, such as the change from indiscriminate vandalism to looting, and reported on Twitter, the same behaviour echoes elsewhere. The lens through which rioters determine acceptable behaviour is expanded, so the chance of behaviours like looting rippling across the various mob groups within a locale increases. One escalation of violence becomes multiple escalations. Twitter is thus a serious danger to society during periods of social unrest and rioting, because it acts as a catalyst for further mayhem. By blocking Twitter governments are able to manage flashpoints and prevent them from expanding violence to other locations. This makes riot situations both less likely to escalate, and easier to break up.

Rioters will always find tools by which to organize. The internet is a remarkably fecund environment, one in which solutions to problems are quickly found. If the government were to block Twitter, enterprising demonstrators would quickly find an alternative. The violence will still escalate, and blocking out a website will fail to accomplish anything other than alienate Twitter users from the state and anger at its impositions.

How are the police to block social networks when riots are ongoing? The idea that blocking an individual network like Twitter would stop online networking and reporting during riots is laughable and misunderstands the rapidity with which the internet community adapts to changed circumstances and attempts at censorship. Blocking Twitter might work once, but never again. This is why there have been suggestions that the police would go further and either cut off the internet or phone networks as they would effectively need to impose a communications blackout in order for it to be successful, much as the Chinese does in Tibet when there is unrest.[1] Even then the action may not work, rioters will likely simply post pictures and encouragement for the next night’s rioting once the internet and mobile connections are restored as governments would have to do if they did not want to affect the law abiding majority during the day.

[1] Branigan, T., “China cut off internet in area of Tibetan unrest”, The Guardian, 3 February 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/03/china-internet-links-tibetan-unrest

Internet users rely on high visibility for their comments to be significant. When Twitter is shut down, or its replacement, the new sites that pop up must start again in building numbers.[1] Without sufficient numbers on the network they will be able to build up momentum for riots online. The result is a significant blunting of the network’s ability to develop or act in a riot scenario; a site is not useful for directing riots if most of those who would riot or are rioting are not on that network.

[1] Berger, J.M., “#unfollow”, Foreign policy, 20 February 2013. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/02/20/unfollow

The state may not be the best placed to gauge the legitimacy of riots. Oftentimes riots are the result of massive social pressures, like poverty or limited integration of immigrant communities. When these issues are not properly addressed, or outright ignored by the ruling elites, they boil over. Positive things can come from riots. They can put the issues on the table and bring them screaming into the public consciousness. This is the difference between the Arab Spring that was considered legitimate and the London riots that were not, apart from the initial peaceful protests the riots did not have an agenda to create change.[1] The government suppressing legitimate demonstrations, whether they do it with physical force or internet repression, ultimately serves only to push away the problem, to continue to ignore it.[2] Blocking social networks therefore only seeks to muzzle the expression of outrage that is sometimes entirely justified. The media attention and organizing power of social networks serves to get people engaged, motivated, and visible. The government should not seek to stop that. They should seek to prevent protest and demonstration from spilling into violence. Blocking access to social networks will not aid in that endeavour.

[1] Stylianou, A., “Cyber Regulation and the Riots”, Legal matters, Autumn 2011. http://legalmattersmag.wordpress.com/features/autumn-11/cyber-regulation-and-the-riots/

[2] Dugan, L. “Blocking Twitter During Riots a Bad Idea, Study Proves”. Media Bistro. 2011. http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/blocking-twitter-during-riots-a-bad-idea-study-proves_b13091

Even if their message is worth being spread, rioting and violence is not the way to do it. Using the tactic of riot to further an aim only serves to alienate the public which is brutalized by the violence in the streets. In effect when a protest turns into a riot it delegitimises itself and tarnishes its message. Blocking social networks will not occur when those protests are seeking to spread their message relatively peacefully but will only happen when they have already turned to violence when it becomes a useful tool in the arsenal of the state to forestall the worst violence by denying its ability to be spread rapidly through the internet.

The blocking of social networks, of the internet, or of mobile phone networks in times of riot would be an illegitimate curtailment of a private company’s right to do business and serve its customers. Social networks are business and have many users. Even more important is the impact on everyone who is not associated with the rioting. When these actions are taken it harms everyone, perhaps even millions of people at a given time.[1] The action taken by the state to seek to prevent the spreading of the riots is not only ineffective it is also a massive imposition on the rights of the citizens of the polity. Their freedom of speech is curtailed, business is harmed, and the riots continue. Studies of the use of Twitter during the riots in London showed that during rioting it was mostly used to react to the riots to send warnings to avoid trouble rather than incite violence.[2] Blocking access or cutting off communications would therefore mean putting at risk those people who otherwise would have been warned not to go near areas with rioting.

[1] Temperton, J. “Blocking Facebook and Twitter During Riots Threatens Freedom”. Computer Active. 15 August 2011. http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2101952/blocking-facebook-twitter-riots-threatens-freedom

[2] Ball, J., and Lewis, P., “Riots database of 2.5m tweets reveals complex picture of interaction”, The Guardian, 24 August 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/24/riots-database-twitter-interaction

Private companies have no right to do business when that business is facilitating violence even if that facilitating is unintentional. Sometimes brief impositions are necessary to secure public order. In the course of a riot Twitter can be blocked temporarily to have a meaningful effect on its coordination, extent, and level of violence. This however need not cause problems with those uninvolved not receiving prior warnings as the police could do this before shutting down the network in the local area. And of course when the riot is over the service can return as normal. Ultimately the disruption is very brief, and not likely to ruffle too many feathers overmuch.

The state always likes to expand its powers over speech, particularly when that speech is damaging to the government’s credibility. The freedom of speech is a critical right in all free societies precisely because it is the ultimate check ordinary citizens have to challenge the powers that be, to express dissent, and to organize with like-minded people dissatisfied with the way government is running. The internet has been the most powerful and valuable tool in the expansion of individuals’ power of their governments.[1] The state quakes at the raw people power services like Twitter provides. It is the last frontier largely free of the state’s power, and the state has sought to expand its influence. By blocking Twitter the government would be able to get its first foothold in blocking free speech online.[2] The power of that beachhead would serve to give it further credibility in censoring other services online in the public interest. It is much better that the government be kept entirely out of these services, than let them begin the slow creep of intervention that would be a serious threat to the freedom of individuals on the internet.

[1] Anti-Defamation League. “Combating Extremism in Cyberspace”. 2000. http://archive.adl.org/civil_rights/newcyber.pdf

[2] Temperton, J. “Blocking Facebook and Twitter During Riots Threatens Freedom”. Computer Active. 15 August 2011. http://www.computeractive.co.uk/ca/news/2101952/blocking-facebook-twitter-riots-threatens-freedom

The state curtails all kinds of speech when it is genuinely in the public interest. Blocking Twitter and other social networks during times of riot is a very particular case of intervention, one with specific manifest benefits for society. The internet is indeed a fantastic tool for social organization and dissent, but it cannot be abused at the expense of the public.

It is wrong to suggest that social networks only provide advantages to the rioters in a riot. Many of the networks that can be used are open to the public and even where they are not as with blackberry messenger the police and intelligence services can likely gain access. This means that the police can also benefit from rioters use of social networks. Allowing the rioters to communicate can help the police to track what the rioters are doing and potentially to intercept any plans before they can be put into action. The same logic is used with websites that promote extremist ideologies; it is often better to monitor them for the intelligence they provide. The police already monitor protest groups in this way during demonstrations and even use it to help police impromptu raves so will surely apply it to riots.[1] Yet the social media is useful in other ways, particularly after the rioting it can be used to work out who was involved and to provide evidence against them so making the police much more efficient at catching and charging rioters.

[1] Rawlinson, K., “Activists warned to watch what they say as social media monitoring becomes 'next big thing in law enforcement”, The Independent, 1 October 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/activists-warned-to-watch-what-they-say-as-social-media-monitoring-becomes-next-big-thing-in-law-enforcement-8191977.html

Monitoring a riot does not prevent the damage, destruction, and potentially loss of human riot that the riot causes. Rather than taking a reactive passive approach the police have a duty to try and save lives by making use of every tool they have to limit the size and extent of the rioting.