Democracia y redes sociales.

 

World Citizen: Democracies Ponder Limits to Social Media Access

By Frida Ghitis | 18 Aug 2011

Amid the anxiety and devastation of the London riots, there was one brief comic interlude, when the government of Iran urged British authorities to use restraint in dealing with protesters. The appeal was bitterly amusing, of course, because of the brutal tactics Tehran used to put down protests in 2009. Police in London managed to end the rioting using traditional crowd-control methods. But then, in the wake of a public outcry over the disturbances and the disappointing performance of the police, British Prime Minister David Cameron made a highly controversial proposal: Next time, he suggested, the government might choke off access to the Internet, something Iran also tried in 2009.

As in Iran in 2009 and throughout the Arab world in recent months, those taking to the streets of London used social media as a key organizing tool. With evidence mounting about the role of new communications technologies in the riots, Cameron told Parliament that his government was exploring the possibility of selectively banning individuals from using social networks such as Facebook and Twitter if they used them to organize illegal activities. The remarks echoed a number of proposals in other major democracies to control Internet access for the sake of public safety.



As elsewhere, Cameron's idea unleashed a storm of emotional debate, and the proposal's ultimate fate is still unclear. But it brought to the fore a question that will continue to emerge in democratic societies as social media become more sophisticated and as its users apply them more frequently and more effectively to promote activities the authorities, or parts of society, consider objectionable: Can authorities in a democratic society infringe on the people's right to communicate via social media?

That the new technology played a role in the London riots is without question. Messages posted to social networking sites included calls for rioters to "come and get some (free stuff!!!)" and to shoot "if you see a fed." That produced support for the proposed restrictions, with one politician and avid Twitter user, Conservative MP Louise Mensch, saying a "brief temporary shutdown" of some social networks would be justified on certain occasions.

But many rejected the plan, saying it would place Britain in unsavory company. If Britain restricts social networking in response to the riots, asked Jeff Jarvis, "what separates [it] from Arab tyrannies . . . or . . . China," which also block and ban social communication sites?

Nonetheless, Britain is not the only democracy pondering limits to Internet access. In the U.S., the preventive restriction of access has already been implemented. Last week in San Francisco, the city's subway system decided to shut down network access at a number of stations when it found out about a planned protest, claiming it was doing so "to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform."

In Australia, too, the minister for broadband, communications and digital economy has been pushing to implement Internet filters to protect children from sexual predators. And in the aftermath of the recent Utoya massacre, Norway is looking into ways to prevent plotters from using the Internet anonymously.

When it comes to preventing criminal activity, governments are likely to be granted more leeway by free speech defenders. When the criminal activity has political overtones, the question becomes more complicated. But the most controversial uses of Internet restrictions are those that clearly aim to curtail communications related to political activities.

The fact that the Chinese media have criticized Britain for failing to control the Internet during the riots does not speak well for the idea. After all, Internet censorship, one of China's frequently cited violations of freedom of speech, has become emblematic of China's human rights failings.

Ironically, Internet censorship has not proven all that effective in quelling social unrest. The conventional wisdom is that the Arab uprisings were made possible by Twitter and Facebook. In fact, their role was probably less important than other factors. As Malcolm Gladwell noted, revolutions were toppling governments long before Facebook existed.

Still, the ways in which the Internet has facilitated communication do make a difference. The dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia fell because the people were fed up with them, but without Twitter and Facebook, it might have taken years to topple them. The new methods of communication allow dispersed individuals to connect and work together, and to coordinate their actions. Planning can take place even while members of a diffuse group go on about their daily lives, and it allows them to maximize the impact of their efforts by suddenly concentrating physically in a single location, while widely broadcasting their views and activities, both at home and abroad.

Social media allow groups to assemble the critical mass that can overwhelm the police, as in the case of the London looting. Or, as in the case of the growing flash mobs targeting retailers in the U.S., they can abruptly leave business owners at the mercy of gangs.

Meanwhile, shutting down access to the Internet has a mixed record in stopping political activities that governments want to snuff out. It did not work very well for Arab dictators trying to keep their fingers clenched around the levers of power. Last January, the Egyptian government shut down the Internet to try to stop the Tahrir Square uprising. But in the end, President Hosni Mubarak still ended up driven from power. The Syrian regime has also tried to choke off social media. But protesters have found ways around the restrictions, and President Bashar al-Assad remains under pressure.

Conversely, China and Iran have had some success at limiting Internet access to stop politically motivated disturbances. Tehran has so far succeeded in putting down the protest movement that initially arose following the disputed June 2009 presidential election. And China shut down the Internet for six months in the western province of Xinjiang after violent disturbances in 2009.

But in both cases, shutting down the Internet was not the only weapon in the authorities' arsenal. In order to effectively use Internet restrictions, it would seem that governments must apply the measures early enough to prevent disturbances from gaining momentum, and they must be willing to combine the restrictions with shows of force. In a democracy, pre-emptive restrictions on social media communications before objectionable activities have in fact taken place run head-on into concerns over freedom of speech.

The debates on this issue are sure to heat up in the coming years. Courts will likely allow restrictions on nonpolitical messaging used solely for criminal purposes, perhaps based on legal precedents outlawing conspiring to commit a crime. But limits on political communications that use new media, even if they include planning for activities that violate the law, will continue to face steep obstacles in democratic societies.

Frida Ghitis is an independent commentator on world affairs and a World Politics Review contributing editor. Her weekly column, World Citizen, appears every Thursday.