Bernard Keane in Crikey.
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…focusing on the technologies that enable interconnectedness misses the point, which is what people are choosing to do when they connect with each other, and why they choose to do it. Social media are merely targeted because they’re perceived as new and unfamiliar to institutional élites, which are always late-adopters. No one would seriously talk about targeting the phone system because it is being used to coordinate illegal activity, but the internet is considered fair game. Moreover, as plenty of people, including Labour MP Tom Watson, have pointed out, social media, like all technologies of connectedness, are neutral. What’s important is what people choose to do with them…. The essence of what Cameron proposes is the digital equivalent of the Riot Act, demanding that people stop connecting with each other in ways that threaten order. Like the Riot Act, it won’t work, because people will connect together anyway. Remove one form of social media, and people will find other ways to connect up. The only truly effective way of suppressing the impact of social media is to turn off the internet and the mobile phone system altogether — the Mubarak solution. And even then, people jury-rigged dial-up internet to communicate.
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