If We’re Turning Off Social Media, I Want News Channels Shut Down, Too | Hacker News Reader

If We’re Turning Off Social Media, I Want News Channels Shut Down, Too

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115 pointsd0ne32 comments

Most western nations wouldn't consider shutting down the major broadcasters during something like London. The media is firmly entrenched as part of the establishment, and is more than happy to provide spin that's in favor of the politicians in a time like that. And they needed the spin - the negative public sentiment about the riots was probably a real factor in thinning out the crowds.

Of course they're worried about social media. US/EU actors have been practicing the twitter and facebook provocateur thing for more than two years now - Tehran '09, Bangkok '10, .cn #jasmine '11 and of course MENA this spring. The IRGC similarly had a pretty good run at it in Bahrain. They are pretty worried about the same thing happening at home, because they know it works. The US doesn't want an Internet kill switch for nothing.

So, I guess it's unfair, but what else is new? It's a pretty impractical idea anyway, it's not like the UK would have any success blocking traffic - and any US company that voluntarily did it voluntarily would likely see a substantial backlash world wide.

The US doesn't want an Internet kill switch for nothing.

Quite OT, but this sentence makes me cringe. There's a common misconception that the proposed "Internet kill switch" would allow the executive to order ISPs to turn off access in exceptional circumstances. This is false. What is proposed is an authority given to the executive to preemptively pardon any ISP (or other service) that chooses to disable service, and excuse them from liability for whatever damages. This would allow ISPs to react more forcefully to major cyberattacks.

The idea is still of arguable merit, but the proposed mechanism doesn't do the government any good unless ISPs have their own reasons for wanting to turn off service. The idea is to remove unwanted disincentives for them to do so, not to force them to do so.

(Everything else you said is quite true.)

I honestly didn't realize that, so thank you for clarifying.

My skeptical side wonders if that really changes much, though. Sure, some ISPs would stay up but many of the largest backbones and retail ISPs are deep in bed with the government already, and would have a lot to lose if they fell out of favor. Congress already had to give the telcos retroactive immunity once to cover them for the illegal warrant less wiretaps that they ran for years. I'm not sure if they feel compelled or are just looking to find favor, but either way it's hard to not imagine them going along for the ride if the president was calling.

And while I think some kind of cyberwar is a serious threat, that defense scenario doesn't make much sense when gamed. That kind of response implies a decapitation attack: either looking to disable our networks/economy or attacking infrastructure and critical systems and making things go boom.

A kill switch doesn't help anything if they just wanted us offline in the first place. You may need to drop off for a while to get back in control but I'd be surprised if the big SLA's didn't cover acts of war the same as earthquakes. In the case of major ongoing infrastructure attacks you have to believe that'd be setup well in advance and just triggered - with boots on the ground and satellite gear to handle the glitches, all while coordination and response was that much more difficult.

Looking for examples of internet controls around the world it's hard to not conclude that social control is the primary motivation, really only China has any real defensive posture. Maybe we are the exception to the rule.

I do think it's rather far fetched that it'd actually ever get used in that way though. I think it's just the product of paranoid minds that have been high on the patriot act for ten years now.

> the proposed mechanism doesn't do the government any good unless ISPs have their own reasons for wanting to turn off service.

ISPs have shown in the past that they are all too willing to bow to government pressure even when there is no legal pressure as well.

The wording of the kill switch bill is to allow the government to dissemble whilst attaining the power it desires.

Most of these companies have already demonstrated a willingness to sell you down the river if the government so much as looks that direction, so there's not really much of an effective difference.

The difference is social media cannot be controlled. TV news can. It's a valuable tool for governments to have at their disposal in a time of crisis. Especially in the era of media consolidation a government might only need to influence a few large companies into spinning the story towards a particular direction. Naturally in a time of crisis with no other information the media is more likely to repeat official government information/opinion in any event. This is exactly why TV & radio stations are often among the first targets during a foreign invasion or domestic power struggle.

Chuckling at the thought that TV news is only "controlled" in a time of crisis. Sure, if we've got 24/7 crises.

The "War on Terror" fits that bill nicely.

Yet this is changing rapidly. As the digital ecosystems become news channels themselves, news papers as we know them will die slowly but surely.

You think it only centralization of economies (communism) that's unsustainable? Its not. At the heart money is just another kind of information/data framework.

So the parallels although hidden behind a fog of semantics and retorics are really quite profound IMHO.

So although government might see broadcast media as the best way to control sentiment, it's slowly loosing it's grip of the population. A couple of generations from now and traditional newspapers are going to in the history books. They simply provide no value that newer social ecostems can't do better

Here's an idea, if a dozen people manage to take control of a few planes, let's make it an extreme hassle for everyone to fly and harass millions of innocent flyers each and every week, for the rest of history (then copy that approach to other modes of transportation).

Technology doesn't manufacture the evil in society, it just makes it really obvious and puts it in the foreground. Maybe the evil needs to be circumvented far earlier on a more fundamental level instead of trying to hide it away.

Can we really not differentiate between the two? TV, on its own, is a one way medium. Social media is interactive and allows two way communication. This is going to get some people up in arms but it is a realistic knee jerk reaction to think about shutting down social media when your populace is organizing mayhem using these networks. Even if shutting down the networks is an exercise in futility.

I up voted your comment, however:

Drug dealers, Pedophiles and terrorist all use email, cell phones, public roads and snail-mail to organize, and conduct, their illegal activities. Is it a realistic reaction to consider shutting each of these down every time there is a new conviction?

They're (hopefully) only talking about shutting things down for a short time. And yes, public roads are shut down quite frequently, sometimes as part of crime fighting efforts. Snail-mail is completely shut off every Sunday even!

It's not the fact that infrastructure gets shut down it's the reason and scope.

No Snail-mail on Sunday is unrelated to people using it for illegal purposes.

Public roads being shut down, even for crime fighting efforts, is not the same as 'shutting down' Facebook or Twitter for your citizens. The proper analogy would be 'Someone was hit by a drunk driver and we believe more drunk drivers will illegally use the road so no one is allowed to drive on any roads for any reason.'

The point I was poorly making was that the powers that be will likely weigh the costs and benefits of shutting various things off, and the perceived cost (negative impact to innocent parties) for disabling twitter is probably so low it barely registers.

I agree with you completely. However, in a Democratic government the decision to limit the freedom of your citizens shouldn't be made based on how easy it is for you to do but whether or not it is the right thing to do.

"saves my bacon? right thing to do"

Except as has been documented, it was more Blackberry Messaging that was being used to organize, in this case. Where's the push to ban proprietary, dying, overpriced text messaging services? At least that would do some actual societal good, by clearing out some obsolete technological cruft.

Restrict technology during unrest? Fine, give it a shot. But start with older technologies, like fire and sticks.

OK, either someone didn't get the sarcasm, thought I wanted to ban fire, sticks and cell phones during unrest, and disagreed with me. Or, someone did get it, and thought that yes, it's OK to ban fire, sticks and cell phones during unrest. Or maybe you don't like sarcasm.

To be explicit: banning cell phones, Twitter and other technologies during unrest would be as futile and nonsensical as banning other technologies like fire and sticks. Not to mention totalitarian. And if I got trapped in an area of unrest, I would dearly love to be able to call my family or the police. Or twitter them. Or fight someone off with a fiery stick.

Either way, I'm really interested to know your reasons why you believe what you do.

The unauthorized use of fire on other people's property was already banned, it didn't stop people using it :P

I can't really find a connection between social media and tv news in regard to how they had an impact on the riots. What made social media a problem was that it connected individuals and allowed them to communicate/organize. The TV news, however, is a one-way street. They're delivering information about a situation, not helping others to do harm. I think in general there's a bit of frustration here because during a situation as severe as the riots, the media as a whole tend to get in the way. Regardless, no need to abolish/limit people's access to media. Way too dictatorial.

Reporting of a phenomenon can increase the incidence of that phenomenon.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copycat_suicide

It's not an unreasonable assertion that the reporting of the riots inspired people in different cities to carry out their own riots.

Not a good reason to block them however.

If fearmongering were illegal, politicians would struggle to find words.

No, they could still make empty promises.

As I've said before, with all that money being made on the internet, do you think for a second they will allow it to remain free? News is a commodity. The newspapers, tv stations, and radio stations are all in the advertising business. Coincidentally, so is google, facebook, and twitter. Get the captive audience into their seats, and tell them what to buy. You want to change the world? Make advertising illegal. It's all coercion anyway. Don't we have a right to life without coercion? Think about it.

Turning off Social Media during unrest won't have the desired effect: people will use their cellphones instead. Turn those off too, and they'll start distributing underground papers (like in WW2). Or maybe they'll just use their voices to shout out.

The only thing that really helps to control the crowds is spraying Soma gas on them during times of unrest. Or maybe mix Soma in the tap water.

However the speed of the organization of "events" is reduced from near instantaneous to days or weeks. It's the speed of the message delivery system that makes it attractive, and it's most exploitable resources.

Unlike social media, would people miss the 24/7 news channels as much?

Its the sender stupid. Not the messenger.

Turning off social networks won't prevent riots. It doesn't even prevent them in Egypt.

There is nothing gained from inhibiting this kind of free association and speech.

I want a way for the citizens of America to "Shut down" the government in exceptional circumstances, you know, for the good of the people.

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