David Cameron should heed Douglas Adams and ORG

Widely reported today are David Cameron's comments to parliament on riots and social media:

Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media.

Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill.

[And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them.]

So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.

I have also asked the police if they need any other new powers.

(the bit in square brackets was in his press statement, but not read in the Commons)

This particular line of reasoning was magnificently rebutted by Douglas Adams in 1999:

Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people 'over the Internet.' They don't bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans 'over a cup of tea,' though each of these was new and controversial in their day.

I was encouraged recently when the UK Govt abandoned web blocking plans in the Digital Economy Act. Understanding that the internet is there for common carriage (a mere conduit, as the EU puts it) is important. Even on its own terms this threat makes little sense: if people are plotting riots on social media, that is surely exactly the evidence you need to convict them under the UK's statutory Conspiracy law. The telephone, the M4 and cups of tea are much harder to use as sources of evidence.

The Open Rights Group, has a typically measured and thoughtful response to this.

Cameron should be careful, or he'll look to posterity like William Cobbett ranting about the pernicious evils of tea.