UK Prime Minister Wants To Ban Suspected Rioters From Facebook & Twitter
from the oh-come-on dept
After initially blaming the Blackberry and suggesting that Blackberry's messaging service be shut down to try to quell the UK riots, it seems that UK politicians are trying to up the level of "bad ideas in reaction to riots" with Prime Minister David Cameron suggesting that those who are suspected of rioting be banned from social networks like Twitter and Facebook.David Cameron has told parliament that in the wake of this week's riots the government is looking at banning people from using social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook if they are thought to be plotting criminal activity.I'm at a loss to see how anyone believes that cutting off communication for people who feel disenfranchised will suddenly make them less interested in rioting. There's this rush by people in charge to think that "if only we could stop them from spreading messages, that will calm them down." That seems likely to be a giant miscalculation. It's not hard to get around any such ban, and instituting such a ban is just likely to piss off the very people they're trying to calm down.
The prime minister said the government will review whether it is possible to stop suspected rioters spreading online messages, in his opening statement during a Commons debate on Thursday on the widespread civil disorder for which MPs were recalled from their summer recess.
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Filed Under: david cameron, free speech, london, pre-crime, riots, social networks, uk
Companies: facebook, rim, twitter
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Wrong way
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If only
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Re:
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As this riot has shown us, the best speech is no speech.
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SUSPECTED rioters?
Next they'll say that being on either Facebook or Twitter is suspicious activity, thus making you suspect.
Hence, just ban everyone from both Facebook and Twitter.
Then they'll all flock to Google+.
Then they'll ban that.
Then they'll all flock to something else.
The problem is, soon, they'll invent something that is a lot harder to ban.
Yes, the government really is that stupid.
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Re: SUSPECTED rioters?
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The police state uses everything to justify more police state.
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yeah, disenfranchised
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Re: yeah, disenfranchised
He sat back in his chair, feeling smug in his hypocrisy, a small, weasely smile crossed his face.
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Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
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Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
I know this because I looked on your Facebook and one of your friends and/or friends of friends was spotted by law enforcement at the scene of a riot. You are now banned from Twitter and Facebook. Your connection from any port outside of port 80 will be blocked, and any traffic over port 80 will be heavily monitored. If any messages over port 80 is unable to be decoded and read, we will be authorized to hold you in detention until otherwise instructed.
We're just trying to take potential tools away from terroris-I mean rioters. Good citizens aren't rioters, they stay at home quite comfortably and thus are too busy working to be out stealing things from shops, homes, and strangers on the street. If a tool was used in an act of crime it should be taken away from those individuals. Those rioters are criminals and should be dealt with accordingly.
Seeing the problem yet?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
Remember that Brazilian dude killed at the tube?
They were following him and he didn't even knew about it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
Then you truly are a shortsighted simpleton.
Why do we even need elections if morons like you would be perfectly willing to just hand it all over to the first despot that is willing to paint enough people as "The Bad Guy" to keep you fat and distracted?
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Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
Riots in Libya and Syria are "'the people' demanding democratic regime change" and they "deserve our support" but rioters in the UK are "crooks engaged in mindless violence" and the "deserve the 'full force' of the law."
Strange strange world we live in.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
Possibly, democracy does not mean what you think it means.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
Personally I have a similar opinion of the rioters an Libya and Syria as I do of the rioters in the UK.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
He is not innocent.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
Here in London, most of the rioting was greed motivated, gangs and other eejits took full advantage of the police being slow off the mark, to smash and rob stores of valuable goods like tvs,watches,jewelry,phones,trainers. Some small shops were even robbed at knifepoint or threat of being beat up.
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Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
But not too busy to write inane comments and check if anyone has replied every 10 minutes!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
Are you the guy that do something when people get bullied by law enforcement?
If no, why are you complaining when people get really mad about it and show it?
Did you really think that once a riot started opportunists wouldn't be part of it?
In every riot people loot and destroy things.
There is not one case of a riot not involving loot and destruction of property.
Besides a little rebellion now and then is a good thing.
It is a measure by which people can understand how good a government is or is not, how policies need to change or not, it is a way for the commons to vent and have their grievances heard and not just dismissed as something inconsequential, it forces governments to take people seriously.
Quote:
Source: Thomas Jefferson
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
I agree, our political system is 'stuck' pretty much like the USA, we need a new political system, not just a new bunch of MPs. We do need something to help young people just starting out in life, it doesn't help that university fees are about to rise 3 fold, and there isn't much help for people wanting to start a small business from scratch.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
There were loads of opportunists...but they all came from very similar areas. There is a reason these riots didn't break out across the country starting in rich neighbourhoods.
Of course, if you follow the media and majority of the MP's in the house of commons yesterday, you wouldn't spend much time thinking about that, its all just thugs and thievery right....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
There were loads of opportunists...but they all came from very similar areas. There is a reason these riots didn't break out across the country starting in rich neighbourhoods.
Of course, if you follow the media and majority of the MP's in the house of commons yesterday, you wouldn't spend much time thinking about that, its all just thugs and thievery right....
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Re: Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
"The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers..."
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Re: Re: yeah, disenfranchised
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Re: yeah, disenfranchised
> with their $200 iphones to record their destruction
> of the property of those who actually work for a living.
As a freedom loving American I can assure you that those disenfranchised cowards are going to be very disappointed once they discover that those tv's they looted only run on 220 volts.
> Have these poor disenfranchised rioters checked
> their mailboxes for their welfare checks?
Can't they get direct deposit and use their $200 iphones to check that the deposit happened?
Hey, this trolling thing is fun. Thanks for showing me how to do it!
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Go for it
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Re: Go for it
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jail?
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Re: jail?
When you make a world of criminals, the world is your jail.
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Re: Re: jail?
It's like darwinism for criminals.
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he's clearly right
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Re: he's clearly right
Shutting down twitter and facebook would have solved these issues Johnny on the Spot!
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Re: he's clearly right
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Calm them down
The UK lawmakers and government doesn't see a need to calm them down, only to end the riots by defeating them in battle. They are not part of the "us" that the policy makers view themselves as. The rioters are a "them" to be defeated with battlefield tactics. There is no effort to "win the hearts and minds" of the rioters nor to bring them into the circle of "us".
If "they" become part of "us" then "we" become like "them", and that just will not do.
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Re: Calm them down
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Re: Re: Calm them down
> enemy, rather than upset citizens
They're not 'upset citizens'. They're a bunch thuggish assholes who took advantage of some perceived wrong to go on a week-long binge of destruction and violence.
'Upset citizens' don't beat teenagers with baseball bats just to take their iPods or make old ladies strip naked under threat of violence just for the sheer fun of humiliating them.
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Re: Re: Re: Calm them down
But no, they aren't 'upset citizens.' They're ALL responsible for the violent acts of just a few. Which means you're responsible, too. Because you did nothing to stop them.
Read the reports, talk to the people, understand the issues. THEN come back and comment.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Calm them down
> did nothing to stop them.
I'm in frakking California, genius. Stopping them from Santa Monica isn't exactly an option.
And even if I was there, I wouldn't have the legal ability to stop them. Britain has disarmed its citizens and left them helpless at the hands of these barbaric animal. I wouldn't be responsible for not stopping their psychotic orgy of violence, because I wouldn't have the ability to do it. If the entire police force couldn't, why do you think I could? Or in situations like that, am I supposed to just sacrifice myself on the altar of your god of social justice?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Calm them down
Quote back to me anything I've said which 'blames everyone'.
I quite clearly blamed the thugs for being thugs. No one else.
A 70-year-old man died this morning after having been beaten for no other reason than he was out trying to extinguish the fire that was threatening his home-- a fire started, of course, by your precious 'upset citizens'.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Calm them down
This implies that everyone that was rioting is a 'thuggish asshole.' Be more clear if you don't want mistakes.
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Re: Re: Calm them down
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025068/UK-riots-Middle-class-rioters-revealed -including-Laura-Johnson-Natasha-Reid-Stefan-Hoyle.html#ixzz1UogKJGwE
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Re: Calm them down
That's why, this time, the police treated the riots as a public order problem rather than a crimewave, thought a light touch would avoid inflaming the situation, and were attempting to "win hearts and minds" with a less aggressive approach. Since hitting rioters with a big stick had previously proved unpopular with the public, they tried just collecting evidence instead.
The public response was "the police did nothing", "where were the police" or even "send in the army". This time, to the public, the rioters were the "them". Only once the police and government were sure of this were more officers and a more aggressive policing style deployed to successfully quell the riots in London, actually increasing community confidence in the police.
Winning hearts and minds does not always mean treading softly.
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Re: Calm them down
There's been countless times, the police will single out someone, harm them, then act as if they didn't do anything wrong.
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why doesn't the uk government
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Re: why doesn't the uk government
Why bother working? Just go along with whatever lobbyists say, and if a problem comes up, throw money/police/troops/political clout/whatever at it until it goes away. There's no need to actually understand issues or put in any effort to solve them.
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LoL
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Re:
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Why stop there.
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Standard proceedure for UK.
The UK has always been a control freak country. Check how many movies were banned or cut until they made no sense. Many respectable titles are only now being seen in the UK on DVD decades after they were produced. Yes, it's a lot better in the USA but not because our wonderful masters think freedom is a good idea. America is just not as good at micro-managing the population. I hope they never learn either.
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Workaround
"Righty-o. Pip, pip and all that."
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No, the idea is that without social networking, the riots couldn't be pre-planned and organised. There were reports (which I never bothered to follow up so I don't know if they're true or media scaremongering) of various riot groups planning attacks on various places in advance via various systems, and then meeting up there.
Cameron's plan is apparently to cut that off so there wouldn't be any organisation going on. Because of course, before facebook, instant messaging and twitter, there were literally no riots or organised protests in the entire world.
Basically this is just Cameron's policies (which can literally be described as "stop trying to help the poor") blowing up in his face and him taking the opportunity to blame anything and everything else. The rioters weren't in any sense "political", they were "purely criminal", the police responses weren't due to his massive funding cuts for all police organisations in the UK, they were because the police "misunderstood the situation", the high levels of organisation weren't because his policies had affected the poor all across the country in exactly the same way leading to the same response, it's because "they're using social media to organise".
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Seriously. Making US Pols look less stupid
Like that is gonna work.
Aside from the Catholic Church, I can't think of another entity that has ruined more lives than Britain. From India, Ireland, Africa, and the Middle East, all the other bits. Albeit they did draw the line in 1940.
Hey, even a blind squirrel...
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Locking the door in a house without walls.
Can those people not use Retroshare? It is anonymous and encrypted
TOR is available for cellphones too(see: Orbot).
Pirate radios that the government has zero censor powers over are abundant and most of the same people rioting are the ones that listen to them.
There are so many, many ways around those government measures that people have proved around the world like in China and Iran just to name a couple, that I don't see the usefulness of such tactics, it only enforces the view that the government is out to get people and hurt them and not make things better.
The more you try to control the more out of control those things become, so why are the government not dealing with the real issues the issues that brought this crap to happen in the first place?
Those people who had to live under fear of law enforcement being harassed and murdered don't deserve better?
They don't deserve a voice is that it? they should just shut up and put up and take it like a man?
Did anybody caught on the riots felt safe can those people imagine how it is like to feel that way year round because you can't even trust your own government?
Do those in power really think that these things will go away if they smack people hard that already get smacked everyday by the same law enforcement? Could this not escalate and cement the determination of those people who apparently are not afraid anymore of being jailed and hurt by the law?
They expect angry people that have already proven they don't care about the law right now that much, to just obey something that can be circumvented as easily as one can breath?
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Something broke down a while back, people started living longer, we started pushing things off to future generations, and wealth kept getting into fewer and fewer hands.
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Re:
Second, if you're going to side with them, you should clarify whether you are just sympathising with their societal problems, or actually condoning destruction of properly owned by people completely unrelated to those problems.
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Re: Re:
You're opposing sympathizing with the rioters for the right reasons.
You're much better than the jackasses who think they're all looters and don't have any non-selfish reason to riot.
Personally, I sympathize with the rioters, because there have been peaceful protects, there have been attempts from the population that is now rioting to change their society, because people do irrational things when they are angry, and the response from the gov't has . . . not been positive.
I think the burden of responsibility now falls on the parties responsible for the current situation in Britain, which appears to be the 'upper class' and gov't.
Whether the solution was to give in to demands, or find some other way to deal with the rioters before they became rioters, well, that's different in every situation. As far as I can tell, it appears here that giving into the implicit demands would actually have been better for everyone.
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So...
NEXT you will ban anyone over 40, that Quit/fired and cant find a job??
AND if a friend of yours gets beaten up...and you WANT to Bitch about it..And the GOV wont listen...You are banned?
Get the list out of Every person who SAW you beat up the kid/person/friend..(??)
Monitor the web sites for ANY complaints/bitching...AND BAN THE SUCKER(??) who cares if they are 16 or 92 yo grand mother, bitching about her SON getting BASHED in the head by an SM LOVING Police..
Then BASH those that follow the original poster, that POST the BANNING and start complaining, and spreading MORE discontent..
Might as will BAN the site..totally..
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-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Morale improvement
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This will definitely help.
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We have always done things this way, and that is the only possible right way. We can not possibly consider any other way to do things because they must be wrong.
Yes SOME people rioted. Some people peacefully protested.
Yes SOME people looted. Other people used this chance to blame the others while they stole.
I had hoped that cooler minds would prevail, and I would like to point out to anyone playing the home game, after they crush those worthless people underfoot.
Force them into their extra secure areas... they will then have time to look at you who are smugly 1 rung up the ladder.
If you weren't paying attention... your now on the bottom rung.
Enjoy having your rights chipped away until your in the secure zone.
Eye people who looked down on you from the rung above yours... feel sad they still don't get they are next.
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Re:
Exactly what rights are being chipped away from those mobs?
The right to loot, assault, terrorize and humiliate people without repercussion?
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I couldn't care less. No reason justifies lighting the home of an elderly man on fire and then beating him to death when he tries to put it out.
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Re: Re:
Let us follow up that when they shoot a family member they will ignore your requests for any information. They will promise the right person will be right out to speak with you, and then they leave you standing there for hours.
Then add the Government wants to shut down communication networks for EVERYONE to "try" and stop a few bad actors.
Then let us discuss the austerity measures cutting deeply into society, because you underlings need to get less so we can pay to save the bankers who fxcked the country.
Let us discuss that peaceful protests are met with kettling, and ignoring people actively destroying property so they can scoop up the ringleaders who dared to plan a peaceful protest in the first place.
Thats just off the top of my head, and I'm not even British.
Everyone wants to look at the riots and looting and see them as a single thing. You want to think they are all do nothing layabouts who are just taking what they want. Well what little they did have, was taken away... and taken away... and taken away... and then they took away treating you like a human.
Pushed to far, how would you like them to express the rage they feel?
Strongly worded blog posts?
Oh they can have a protest march, and be kettled for hours, beaten by police and denied access to medical care.
"The right to loot, assault, terrorize and humiliate people without repercussion?"
That is what the Government has been doing to these people for years, they showed them how it was done.
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Re: Re: Re:
> for years, they showed them how it was done.
Interesting. So when the government cuts back on your welfare check, you get to run amuck, set people's homes on fire, then beat them to death for attempting to defend themselves and/or put it out.
That's quite a system of moral values you've got going there.
Here's a hint: if you want to violently protest the actions of the government, then fight the government, not whatever random citizen you come across.
Forcing an 80-year-old women to strip naked at bat-point just for the sheer fun of humiliating her doesn't make you a righteous patriot. It makes you a psychotic animal.
Beating a 14-year-old boy bloody just so you can root around in his backup for his iPod and his wallet doesn't make you a champion of the poor. It makes you a barbaric thug.
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But let's get back to talking about the riots instead of the police, alright?
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Those politicians are...
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If the young want to get a good education they now end up with �60,000 debt.
People who have a terminal illness having been told you may not lie more than 6 months are told to report to a job centre 3 or 4 times a week to find a job as well as hospital visits for radio therapy or kemo.
meanwhile people in wheelchairs being told to apply for jobs like planting trees on motorway embankments.
that is the society the British government are creating.
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It seems that you would prefer the government to coddle the children and encourage their outbursts, rather than take action. Taking away social media (or computer network access altogether) from these people might actually get their attention. It's one of the few things in life they appear to prize.
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