Big Brother Taking Away Our Freedoms?

There is one thing though that i must get off my chest having thought about this for a while. During the recent riots here in the UK it has emerged that alot of cordination was being done using the Blackberry messenging service which apparently unlike other smartphones is encrypted. Twitter and Facebook were also utilised as well. The Government has recently called a meeting of the main social media providers including Blackberry to discuss ways of disabling the facility to incite riots, i assume from this there will be filters and blocking mechanisms in place so if someone uses the word riot in their message it will not be sent. I can understand this sentiment in preventing the criminal use of social media networks. However what i do find quite uncomfortable is politicians deciding what is acceptable and what we are allowed to use social media for. What if God forbid there is a coup overnight in the UK and say the military takes over and imposes martial law. The population would be up in arms, and quite rightly so and i for one would certaintly resist and join a democracy movement. So in this scenerio then would our ability to use social media be curtailed? Whilst rioting is wrong, there are two sides to the same coin. Social media is a very useful tool FOR democracy. We have seen this in the Middle East with the Arab Spring where it has been used to organise protests against dictaorships.
So i feel that the Government has to be damn careful in how they go about in responding to the riots. And i feel uneasy about the attempts to control social media in this context. We are in danger of losing an important tool in maintaining democracy in the UK. I remember the last time we had riots, Notting Hill, Liverpool, Manchester back in the 1980s and back then blackberries, twitter and facebook was non existent. We are living in a furturistic age now. My very first mobile was a startac flip phone as i just had to have a mobile that resembled the Star Trek communicators! Now we are carrying around mini computers in our pockets. With increased ability to communicate in a wide variety of formats we should be mindful that we do not lose our freedoms we currently enjoy now.

I would think it would be better to have a handicapped ability to communicate rather than arming police and allowing shoot on sight for looters.

reply to post by Bramble Iceshimmer


Well, over here we have this thing called freedom of speech, er, supposedly we do. Anyway, why should I give up the right to communicate(it is speech, right?) just so my government can control me better?

Hogwash.

1984 is gone, say goodbye to Big Brother
Welcome to the new millennium where the government's your mother

Originally posted by TheLoony
reply to post by Bramble Iceshimmer

 

1984 is gone, say goodbye to Big Brother
Welcome to the new millennium where the government's your mother

So true! The government are acting the parental role. And this is the danger we face. We are sleep walking into a police state. Actually we are already there in so very many ways. It is a shame people in the Uk are not awake enough to realise this.