Back to the future with Cameron’s digital Riot Act
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In the aftermath of the ferocious poll tax riots of 1990, some wag stuck up a photo of the mayhem on a wall in Sydney University’s History Department and scrawled “1990 or 90AD?”
The allusion was not just to the decidedly pre-modern violence on display days earlier in Trafalgar Square but to Britain’s, and London’s, long history of social unrest. One of the routes of the Poll Tax marches, after all, had been deliberately arranged to follow the route of the Peasants’ Revolt of the 14th century. The poll tax campaign of 1990, to which time and changing fashions now give an air almost of Young Ones style hijinks, was of course far more innately political and organised than the last week’s events in London, but it serves to illustrate that, when it comes to civil disorder in the UK, we’ve been here many times before. And that includes David Cameron’s response last night, in which he claimed social media had been used to organise the riots and his Government would look at ways to prevent people from using it for that purpose, and giving police discretion to remove face coverings in public. Later, in responding to questions, Cameron said broadcasters should also hand over un-aired footage of riots to police. Cameron is merely walking in the footsteps of his predecessors. The British ruling élite has been here before, many times, and reacted the same way. One of the longer periods of civil unrest in England was in the early eighteenth century, when the country’s ruling élite and emerging middle class lived in semi-permanent fear of “Mr Mob”. The period produced the Black Act of 1723, which made it a capital offence to blacken one’s face or use a disguise — initially in royal parks, where poaching was rife, but eventually elsewhere as well. So, there’s a model for Cameron for an anti-face covering regime right there, although the original Black Act was — plainly through an unfortunate lack of foresight — repealed in the 1820s. This period also produced the better-known Riot Act of 1715. That stayed on the lawbooks in various forms in Britain until 1973, although apparently its last outing was early last century. It enabled officials to demand (by way of, yes, “reading the Riot Act”) that any gathering of people “unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled together” disband immediately, on threat of death. Sort of like an offline version of an internet kill-switch. That’s more than a rhetorical stretch or bad pun. As I’ve previously explained this week, 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. Without Twitter, there’d be no #riotcleanup in the aftermath of the disturbances. 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. There’s another way in which Cameron’s digital Riot Act isn’t new. 2011 has seen unremitting attacks on the internet from a variety of sources. I described these earlier in the year and suggested that there was a spectrum of such attacks, from cultural engineers to pre-digital gatekeeper industries trying to hang on to their business models, to governments using national security as a pretext for clamping down on the internet, to dictatorships engaged in all-out campaigns against net freedom. Cameron’s proposal fits perfectly into the third category, although the thinking behind it is more like that of cultural engineers and gatekeepers who don’t understand how interconnectedness has destroyed their ability to control information in the ways they used to. But in joining the ranks of governments using security as a pretext for an internet crackdown, Cameron finds himself in an inconveniently hypocritical position. As J. David Goodman of the NYT pointed out, it was only in February that Cameron was lauding social media for its role in the Arab Spring.
This is the same dilemma the Obama Administration is caught in — Hillary Clinton enthusiastically promotes and funds internet freedom abroad, while the US Government engages in illegal online surveillance, harasses net activists and seeks ways to destroy WikiLeaks at home. I’ve argued before that history shows authorities eventually learn to live with interconnectedness after first trying to suppress it or ban it. But considerable damage is done before they eventually learn that trying to stop people connecting is a Canute-like task. Until they realize that, the internet and its ability to link people with each other will have to be defended. Update: By fascinating coincidence, the San Francisco urban rail operator BART has provided an example of what a digital Riot Act might look like - concerned about a possible demonstration (which never occurred) aimed at its thuggish security personnel, BART took a leaf from Hosni Mubarak’s playbook and shut down mobiles and wireless access at several of its stations for 3 hours, depriving users of mobile phone (including emergency access) and wireless services, with the aim of preventing them being used to coordinate protest action. BART’s like action prompted an explosion of online rage under the #muBARTek hashtag, the now inevitable Anonymous response and detailed questions about exactly what it did - in response to which the company has already changed its story at least once on the crucial issue of whether it even told mobile service providers what it was doing before shutting down parts of their network. Full story here, but there’ll be plenty more on this. As David Cameron will discover, it’s very difficult to prevent people from using a network to plan activities you don’t want, without preventing everyone else from using it as well, including people who may need emergency assistance. |
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32 Comments
I’d say your article is pretty much spot-on, Bernard. In the past, it has always been easier (at least in the short term) for society to treat the symptom rather than the cause. The problem now is, of course, that the symptom is getting very difficult, if not impossible to treat. The twitter/bloggosphere is much harder to clamp down on than somebody distributing a handbill. If you try to clamp down on modern social media, you also run into the problem of hypocrisy - one person’s Arab spring is another person’s Tottenham riot.
Without ever condoning rioting/arson, one has to ask: ‘is there a solution beyond being purely authoritarian?’ I think that the answer is yes, but it will take a lot more short-term effort (but with long-term financial and social gain) than most societies have ever shown themselves willing to invest. Until the under-classes feel they have a stake in the broader society, why would they feel any obligation to adhere to the society’s values?
Top job Bernard.
Same problem. Same solution. Same as it ever was.
I think the phrase Cameron used in regards to Social Media is in fact
“So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”
Sounds like they are still trying to work through the ethics of blocking social media in times of national emergency.
“… when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”
My god! seizing the phones of bankers, stock-jobbers and fox hunt organisers… this Cameron upstart has no sense of decency whatsoever!
England 3 for 76.
Cameron said something to the effect that the riots weren’t a problem of poverty but of knowing right from wrong, which suggests that he also leans towards cultural engineering. That has certainly been the take of the right wing ‘think tank’ ie lobby group Demos.
Assuming that your paraphrasing of Cameron is correct Gavin, then the logical extension is that the poorer classes (who were probably the majority of the rioters) are less likely to know right from wrong than those with a lot more of the hard-earned. There is a bit of a problem in extending this logic to some of the wealthiest GFC culprits, who clearly had significant difficulties in distinguishing right from wrong. Cameron’s argument, when extended, is also a bit chicken and egg: which came first - the poverty or the propensity to riot?
steeleye has shamed me into getting the direct quote, from Cameron’s statement to the House of Commons on 11 August on the number10 web site under the heading ‘PM statement on disorder in England’:
‘I have said before that there is a major problem in our society with children growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong.
‘This is not about poverty, it’s about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.’
Didn’t mean to shame you into anything, Gavin, but thanks for the quote! However, I would still ask the obvious (not necessarily of you): given that the riots appear to be concentrated in the less affluent suburbs, how does Cameron come up with ‘This is not about poverty, it’s about culture’? If it’s only about culture, why were the good young burghers of Chelsea not also on the streets?
Cheers
Surely the difference between phones and social media in a law enforcement context is one of identification. Phones have numbers, can be traced, tapped, conversations recorded etc. Voice analysis used to match voice to identity. SMS’s are centrally stored. The procedure for obtaining this evidence is pretty mature and accepted by the courts. For a phone company to operate in the UK, they need to be licenced and are regulated.
Social media on the other hand has only an IP address and email address, which can be faked (email) or hidden (through the use of proxy). Encryption of data makes the successful interception of information next to impossible. Social media is also based in North America most of the time, making enforcement of local laws difficult. Regulation is primitive at best (as we are seeing with privacy issues/bullying etc).
There has to be a regulatory framework in place for these internet activities. It could be as simple as a local presence for these Social media companies (i.e Twitter UK, Twitter Australia) like the banks, that are accountable to UK regulators. Or a licencing scheme to operate in the UK, that make it subject to certain terms and conditions. There is too much communication (and commerce) going on on-line for the internet to remain the “badlands”.
Steeleye…
I’d imagine the good young Chelsea burghers could send their butlers or au pairs out to scavenge on their behalf.
Taken out of context, Cameron’s comments actually could have a ring of truth to them… it is indeed about culture… deep, dark and entrenched.
Sadly however the traditional cultured response to such outbreaks of “disrespect” is the up the coppers, restore the fear and give the poor a damn good thrashing.
The English ruling class have no responsibilities, only rights. And the poor have a duty to be grateful for the largesse of their betters. As ever.
These problems are beyond their understanding let alone the capacity to fix.
8 for 203
@ steeleye
I shouldn’t have relied on my memory when the transcript was so easy to find.
While they may not put it so simply, I think the right wingers’ line would be that family values and obedience to authority lead to prosperity in Chelsea and the lack of them leads to riots in Tottenham - a sort of ecumenical version of Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.
Scott
Far simpler to cut so hard into the nanny welfare state so the riff raff can’t afford phones. Blackberries at that!
Hammer them down! That always works.
To myself, all that red tape seems a bit of a socialist overreaction for a bit of lumpen proletarian “insider trading”.
England 8 for 234.
“Far simpler to cut so hard into the nanny welfare state so the riff raff can’t afford phones. Blackberries at that! “
Well, I think that is going to happen anyway. Some pretty tough language in the statement from the PM. There will be a lot of people being evicted out of social housing in the near future.
There is always red tape in international affairs…the internet has managed to avoid it so far. But I see a day when this changes and registering domains on regional DNS’s requires a little more documentation than required at the moment (which is sometimes just cash). Would solve a lot of issues currently plaguing the internet now (cyber squating, spam, website spoofing etc)
Gavin: you could have held off on checking the Cameron quote as his Parliamentary performance was just replayed (with lots of ‘Hear, hears’) on PBS Newshour. PBS also reported on some of the rioters who are now being processed through the courts ASAP. One, a 19 year old, got 4 months behind bars, for thieving a violin. This got me thinking about Bernie Madoff’s $65 billion fraud for which he received 150 years in the slammer. At an guesstimated value of $2K for the violin (I assume it wasn’t a Strad), Madoff’s sentence, at the same rate per dollar as the youth’s, would have been about 10.8 million years. This is of course totally irrelevant, but an interesting comparison of white collar crime penalties versus those for a bit of old-fashioned rioting.
UK Riots hit Scotland!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW0356brnrE&feature=share
London is experiencing a brand new breed of riots, as Scotland Yard has established that people are organizing disarray through social networking networks including Twitter. Riots broke out in London after police shot and killed a male that many Londoners believe to have been murdered without cause. Article source: Weekend of London riots leaves city devastated by looting. It’s being said that social media is the cause of the riot. This sounds disappointing, but I don’t think we should put the blame on it. We have this so called “freedom of speech”, but as we use it, we should be responsible for it, and we should not blame others when troubles come out.
Some things never change including the class war that the English ruling classes have waged on the poor forever. Sometimes it boils over, but generally the consumerist fantasy world manages to keep them in check. In the States of course, this check is supplied by keeping the poor drugged to their eyeballs and thus incapable of any sort of organised defiance.
I note that none of the media are drawing any comparisons between the outrage being expressed over the actions of some poor frustrated bastards in English slums, with the carnage we have wrought, quire illegally in Iraq and Afghanistan, no outrage over the million we have killed there.
Cameron:
“We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.”
My sentiments exactly. The GFC pigs have to be dealt with…
A few months after the GFC, the bonuses were back.
The obscene salaries of the upper managerial class, dozens of times greater than 50 years ago, hardly missed a ker-ching…
Under that pile of trainers, there’s the same ancient slime…
On your marx!
@ Michael Crook,
What amazes me is the way the right wing (which in Australia means Liberal and Labor) have been able to make the main issue about the right or wrong of Iraq be about whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
The big question for the Iraq war is whether or not the invasion (and subsequent deaths, injury, displacing of people, and destruction) is justified even if Iraq did have such weapons.
As far as I can remember, no-one ever made a good case that Iraq was an immediate threat. And there was never any good evidence of links between Iraq and the terrorists.
As Iraq was clearly no immediate threat, what possible legal justification can there be for the invasion?
Thus the greatest terrorist act of the last ten years is the invasion of Iraq, and John Howard is far worse than Bin Laden.
Whoops, of course this is Australia.
Nothing illegal about arriving by boat here to seek asylum, but those who do are OTHERS who must be bad because they are not US, so lets lock them up for years in camps hidden away in the desert.
And the hundreds of thousands dead in Iraq, the millions displaced from their homes, and the mass destruction of property, they are further way OTHERS. Why do they matter?
There are more important things for US to worry about, like how the carbon tax will end civilisation as we know it.
And meanwhile, in England (getting this back on topic), we see what happens when people who have learned to think only of themselves realise that they are missing out.
The balance between rulers & ruled has often shifted due to technology, swords over long staffs but then those peasants went & developed the long bow which would skewer a knight through plate armour at 100mts. Crossbows required little skill and could be manipulated at close quarter, such as streets or from keep walls.
Then gunpowder changed the equation again & so on & so fifth, whatever advantage the enforcers (the akshal rulers had long since ceased getting their hands bloody when there were so many willing to do it for them) had was soon copied by the ruled.
Thus better organisation & communication were the advantage as the megacities grew after the Industrial Revolution needed lots of hands in concentrated areas, enabling tiny numbers to control vast masses. For the moment the communication advantage has been lost but the co-ordination remains and is already being reasserted. The Cameroon & backwoods squires must be quaking in their comfy redoubts hoping that the lumpen never get it together to organise, otherwise they might have to relegislate the Combination Laws.
One of the reasons that the rich don’t worry about the poor is that usually when the poor react they stuff themselves up.
So if those who took part in the riots in the UK are thrown out of their council houses, and then take it out on those around them, nothing changes. But imaging what would happen if they went to a very rich area and killed people there.
The US is similar. When people riot or murder there they destroy their own area or kill other poor. Good TV, but why should the rich care? But if the poor’s anger was directed at the rich ….
I think a common mistake made by left or progressive commentators is their assumption that those in power care. In Rooted there was an article about how would Abbott be feeling on his European holiday when so much action on climate change was happening around him.
Note the assumption that Abbot would be thinking logically about climate change.
Blah and Humbug. Abbott would have been enjoying his holiday secure in the knowledge that his tactics are working so well that he will still be leading the polls after his holiday.
Hanson S
Yes shooting the messenger is another well proven weapon (along with more cops and new social control laws) in the defence of the status quo … in this case Blackberries and the other (anti)social media.
Don’t forget this was the country that effectively banned rock and roll on radio until from 1960 until 1990… couldn’t have all those nasty animal wild rhythms corrupting our young persons… let alone catchy little ditties like My Generation and We won’t Get Fooled again actually becoming popular with impressionable teens… goodness me no.
In case you’ve forgotten:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio_in_the_United_Kingdom#1990s
Is it just me or does anyone else think Camoron is channelling Shrub’s threat to ObL? “We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.”
Err.. except for the namby-pamby charge & punish stuff when it’s pretty obvious he’d like this to be his Churchill moment, sending in the army to crush welsh miners rather than just a straightforward massacre like Peterloo.
Some interesting points and discussion in the above postings. But we are using a misnomer for riot communication, it should be called anti-social media.
>”Well, I think that is going to happen anyway. Some pretty tough language in the statement from the PM. There will be a lot of people being evicted out of social housing in the near future.”
They’ll just be trucked out to the unfashionable rural areas, as we have been doing for years.
There’s no shortage of abandoned mining towns up north.
>”One, a 19 year old, got 4 months behind bars, for thieving a violin”
A Medicine student. Hardly “chav”.
>”Social media on the other hand has only an IP address and email address, which can be faked (email) or hidden (through the use of proxy). Encryption of data makes the successful interception of information next to impossible.”
The police can trace packets since they have access to the telephone exchange.
Encryption can be easily defeated in a few minutes with an AT and MSDOS 3.3
Good comment MWH.
What Australians dont realise is that as part of the Cameron “austerity measures”, tenants in social, generally council housing, in the inner city areas had their rent hiked to 80% of private market rents. This is meant to move the poor to the outer suburbs and ghettoes and give the councils access to more income to make up for the cuts in national government funding.
This was undoubtedly a contributor to last weeks events.
Excellent - and sad - observation MWH…
But make no mistake, if the mobs had headed off to the quiet leafy streets of Chelsea for a bit of mayhem, the coppers - and the army - would have been shooting them.
Hurting each other - burning down some Sikh shops and looting a few low rent electrical outlets is one thing - but even rioters in England know their limits.
dear Bernard Keane
prime minster david cameron is sounding more like henry root every day.
yours sincerely
alfred venison
Bernard. I believe there is a tie-in with Eva Cox’s article
THEM AND US: WHY WE NEED A FAIR SOCIETY
Eva Cox said:
“There are warnings from not only the UK but other nations that democracy will deteriorate further if western nations do not try to rethink the emphasis on economic growth and markets, rather than more civil societies. We need to consider what makes a good society, where the nation creates resilient social links between people based on allocating resources fairly and inclusively. The UK experiences should give us all a warning…”
My comment:
WARNING. Most of us now realise the serious harm the previous government has caused. What is not so obvious however is that they also insidiously undermined the psyche of our nation. This hasn’t stopped. It continuous unabated as we speak. Many of the same players, this time from opposition, are again creating fear and uncertainty in the public in order to gain power at all cost. The toxic tabloid print media in it’s death throws are aiding and abetting and in the process are causing untold damage with their false and/or misleading reporting. The taxpayer funded national broadcaster (ABC) should be able to counter-balance this to some extent. Unfortunately due to their flawed charter and their often unprofessional reporting the ABC has become complicit by creating even more uncertainty in an under educated, overextended, misinformed, confused and often apathetic electorate.
DANGER: No government, even with the best intentions, will be able to succeed unless there is a concerted effort to expose and denounce the perpetrators. I can see that it will take quite a while to change public perceptions and restore REAL values.
I am afraid if we are unable to do so, even though circumstance in the UK are different to some extent, there is no reason why similar upheavals can’t occur here.
Cameron can crow all he likes about shutting down the social media for ‘riot prevention’. Obviously it’s easier to blame the messenger and not root cause of the trouble. This just shows his ignorance of the technology….ever heard of Bluetooth?
Yep, seems like the typical elitist ‘treat ‘em mean-keep ‘em keen’ style of governance.
GOCOMSYS, good comment.
I had a sad experience yesterday, while I was out collecting census forms where a party of female 20 somethings at a house where I called, made some very racist remarks about the “towel heads” over the road who were probably planning a terrorist attack and could I let ASIO know.
I hadn’t heard this phrase used much in Australia to date, so this was quite disturbing.
I responded that any terrorist attack wouldn’t be half as bad as the terrorist attack we launched on Iraq, where we killed a million civilians who hadn’t done us any harm.
They just didn’t seem to get it.