More than two thirds of adults would support a social media shutdown during periods of social unrest, such as the recent protests in the UK, according to a UK study.
The Guardian cites a poll carried out by online security firm, Unisys, which found that 70% of adults supported the shutdown of platforms like Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), while only 27% disagreed. The research also found that three-quarters felt governments should have open access to data about social network users in order to prevent co-ordinated crime.
However, Wesley Lynch, CEO and founder of Realmdigital, points out that these findings are largely dependent on the people polled. According to Unisys, the survey made use of a random digit-dialing (RDD) sample of telephone households in the UK.
Lynch advises that while people feel government control of social media platforms would result in less organised crime, this is not necessarily true. He argues that people who want to perpetrate organised crime can do so without a social media platform. “People can always find their way around social networks being blocked,” he adds.
According to CNet, Google, in collaboration with Twitter, set up a service that allowed Egyptians to tweet without an Internet connection during an Internet blackout amid social unrest in that country earlier this year.
Lynch suggests that people in favour of social media blackouts look at the role social media played in the “Arab spring”, and fear the same thing can happen at home. “There is also the fear that there is no way of controlling the riot once it becomes viral and starts spreading,” he says.
In fact, Lynch argues, during the UK riots, people used Twitter as a source of information. “Shutting it down during these riots reflects badly on the government, which is then seen to be controlling and guilty,” he says.
Lynch also points out that the results of the poll are largely affected by the type of people who were questioned. According to him, the results would have been different if more people that used social media were surveyed. He argues that a lot of people are uninformed about social media.
According to Lynch, a similar poll in SA may find parallel results because there are not as many active social media users in SA as in the UK.
The poll also found that people who are older than 65 showed the strongest support for action against social networks, while support for the blackouts was weakest among 18- to 24-year-olds Lynch explains this is because people in this age group are less inclined to use social media. “They do not understand how it works, and may never have used it,” he says.
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