Hi, my name’s Alec, I’m a technologist and expert in Internet Security and Safety.
Back in 1993 British Telecom released the attached advert which, more than many other things, helped shape my perspective towards the (then) still-teenage internet and questions of “freedom of speech”. The principles are not bent by time, and with respect to current political debate they offer the following responses to current provocations:
Social Media is causing the riots
Actually, the riots are a result of years of social deprivation and poor education atop two or three decades of political lies that “immigrants are taking our jobs/benefits/etc”, not to mention both-sidesism “media balance” which has permitted the establishment of far-right figures in our political discourse, and has normalised, even made acceptable, “othering” hatred spouted in our print media.
Rioters are using Social Media to organise
Actually, they are largely using the standard tools of individual communication to organise, which means messenger technology such as SMS and anything popular which has supplanted that, notably Telegram which (as a corporation) historically does not do much to enforce polite behaviour.
Rioters are using (specifically) Twitter to organise
See the above; most of the screenshots you are seeing on (all forms of social media, are of Telegram chats; but even if they were not using Telegram, they would be using something else. Most of what you are seeing surfaced by “algorithms” on social media is normal-people reaction to the rioter material, not the material itself.
Not to mention: raising awareness of counter-demonstrations is something that Twitter does do far better than the mainstream media who prefer to chase after Nigel Farage
Elon Musk is a horrible person and he fired the Twitter Trust & Safety Team
Yes, and he spouts some dire, thoughtless propaganda, too, mostly because he understands that fomenting outrage is a good way to get limelight thrown his way by the popular media. There’s a lot of that syndrome around at the moment.
Ian Dunt summarises this nicely:
…and he continues:
Secret Algorithms on Twitter (Instagram, TikTok) are popularising riot material
“Algorithms” are what brought you “Black Lives Matter” and “Me Too” and other campaigns of positive outrage for change and empowerment. The problem is not with “algorithms” unless you would rather all social media be anodyne, where the words of our most compelling journalists covering real-time political change must equally compete with a neighbourhood argument over hedge-heights and reminiscence of a gig your mate went to in 2014.
But Social Media Has Changed Everything About How We Communicate
So did the printing press, pamphlet, newspaper, novel, telegraph, gramophone, telephone, radio, television, fax, internet, email and web; this is not a new problem. It’s just “change”, and as such the old rules apply, such as human rights, unless you want to make exceptions such as those which Graham satirises:
Make Sure We Keep Talking
Banning open communication is never a good thing. It is never a fix. Please take less than a couple of minutes to watch:
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