Social media legislationJames Kirk

IntroductionThe purpose of this presentation is to

investigate the effect the ‘August riots’ had on legislation pertaining to social media.

I will focus specifically on instances where evidence found on social media were used to prosecute criminals.

David Cameron warned Facebook, Twitter and Blackberry creators RIM, that they need to take more responsibility for content posted on their networks otherwise the government would step in and ban users suspected of inciting violence.

Is this an appropriate punishment for users determined to damage their community and incite violence?

(Halliday and Garside,2011) “Mike Conradi, partner and telecoms specialist at the London law firm DLA Piper, said that emergency measures to stop rioters communicating on social media sites would require legislation and threaten free speech.

Conradi said: ‘What David Cameron appears to be wanting is a police power to trawl through millions of messages – ideally in real time – to prevent possible criminal activity. I don't believe that any such power exists and nor would I want there to be one. Parliament would have to pass new legislation and I would certainly warn against that. That gets the balance wrong in terms of free speech and security. It would certainly put the UK in a difficult position in terms of talking to authoritarian regimes and trying to convince them not to turn off their networks.’ “

Conradi suggests that current legislation is insufficient to provide the police with the censorship powers that David Cameron desires and that if such legislation did exist that it would threaten free speech, a human right granted by the European court of human rights.

(Halliday and Garside,2011) “Current powers allow Rim and others to identify people who may be worth further investigation and potential prosecution without looking at the contents of their messages.”

(Halliday and Garside,2011) “The only organisation which regularly removes illegal content from websites within hours of its discovery is the Internet Watch Foundation, which combats images of child abuse. Funded by internet service providers, mobile operators and other web businesses, it has no legal powers. Any co-operation is voluntary.”

(Halliday and Garside,2011) “Powers do exist in the UK and most other countries to order the shut down of entire networks or individual base stations, blocking all traffic in a particular area. These are seen as a last resort.Vodafone and other carriers were widely criticised for shutting their Egyptian networks during anti-government demonstrations.”

This collection of quotes demonstrate a modicum of power that authorities and watchdog groups possess in terms of censoring content or prosecuting individuals abusing social media, but these limited measures hardly constitute anything in the way of invading people’s privacy and creating some sort of Orwellian society.

Police given powers to track down and obtain personal information, including their names and those of their contacts, in order to prosecute those involved in inciting violence. – Most invasive process that took place during the riots. Potentially questionable practice?

(Halliday, 2011) “Research In Motion (RIM) could hand over information about rioters – including their names, the number of messages sent and received, the names of people they sent messages to, the time they were sent, and the location – without being issued with a warrant by the police.

However, police officers would have to be granted a warrant in order to force RIM to hand over the contents of users' ‘broadcasts’.”

(Halliday, 2011) “Mike Conradi, the partner and telecoms specialist at London law firm DLA Piper, said: "It would be unlawful of RIM to disclose the contents of messages without a warrant issued by a senior police figure or a secretary of state – but that doesn't mean [RIM] couldn't disclose information that would be helpful to the police.“

Conradi added the names, contacts and times of prominent BlackBerry Messenger users would allow police to draw up "quite a detailed picture" of which rioters to pinpoint and obtain a warrant for.”

Difficult to determine what the police actually need a warrant to obtain. Most definitely a threat to privacy. Conradi adds to this confusion within the legislation by stating that it would be unlawful to disclose the contents of messages without a warrant, yet It would assist the police. As with the majority of legislation, it is open to interpretation.

(Halliday, 2011) “A clause in the Data Protection Act allows companies to hand over an individual's private information if it is in the interests of national security or if it allows for the detection and possible prevention of crime.”

(Halliday, 2011) “Computer hackers defaced the RIM official blog earlier on Tuesday in a retaliatory attack over the company's pledge to assist the ongoing police investigation.The hackers, who called themselves TeamPoison, posted a message on the site that read: ‘You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all, the Police are looking to arrest as many people as possible to save themselves from embarrassment.’ ”

The aforementioned clause within the Data Protection Act seems a powerful weapon in the police’s efforts to combat the sort of civil disorder that was witnessed in London and other major cities. It strikes me as odd that this was not utilised more to track down and prosecute those using social media in an inappropriate way.

The right hand quote goes some way to explaining why such invasive powers are avoided by the police and authorities, demonstrating public opinion to even the slightest divulgence of personal information.

Conclusion Legislation regarding the use of social media as evidence seems out dated to say the

least, with authority’s power being dictated by archaic laws not sufficient for dealing with the opportunities social media provides malcontents and criminals.

As demonstrated in the August riots, policing such vast networks as Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry Messenger proves a challenge especially when attempting to balance protecting users privacy and yet prosecuting those intent on abusing the networks to cause civil disorder.

There is no doubt that our legal system is not equipped to deal with the immense possibilities that social media offers to criminals wishing to abuse such a powerful tool. In my opinion protecting freedom of speech and privacy takes priority over an open network that is easily accessed by the authorities.

References HALLIDAY.J, GARSIDE.J(2011) Rioting leads to Cameron call for social media

clampdown[WWW].Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/cameron-call-social-media-clampdown [29/02/2012].

G. BLIGHT, J BURN-MURDOCH, J.BALL and M McCORMICK(2011) England riots: an interactive timeline [ WWW]  Available from:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/interactive/2011/sep/05/england- riots-timeline-interactive?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487   [29/02/2012]. HALLIDAY.J (2011) London riots: police to track rioters who used BlackBerrys [WWW].

Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/09/london-riots-blackberrys-police [29/02/2012].