Government Reviews Social Media in Light of Riots

The government are considering whether to turn off access to social media in times of riots. The police, prime minister and intelligence services are in discussion to decide whether it is right and whether it is possible to turn off access to social media.

Blackberry Messenger and texting were thought to be used by some of the rioters. The Home Secretary will be meeting with representatives from the makers of Blackberry, Twitter and Facebook to discuss their obligations at times of unrest.

There has been criticism of this idea, people saying that it blocks their rights to freedom of speech. However, it has been used in other countries and been successful and so it is obviously possible and an effective tool.

Hopefully there will no need for it to ever happen again, as riots in England are scarce but as there is a lot of evidence that social networking did help riots to start and to spread, then it is not surprising that this form of action will be considered as a plan in case it happens in the future. There were also many rumours spreading on social media about riots which were not true, this caused problems in several areas and so could be a further argument for switching it off in troubled times.

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