Riots in the Bay area which happened in the rapid transit system resulted in the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to shut down social media in the system. This sparked a debate over whether or not it is ethically right to cut off people from communicating with one another via social media. The action taken by BART is then compared to authoritarian government, such as Mubarek. This then raises the question of whether should government have the right to shut down social media on any given time in order to preserve social security?
The advantage of cutting off social media is to maintain civil order as people use social media to organize actions that could disrupt civil order and safety. There was an example of where hoodlums organized a crime through the usage of social media and raided a 7-11 and took most of its items. In similar causes it forces the authorities to shut off social media to minimize harm towards others of the community.
On the other hand, this type of action gives a ticket for other types of societies and government such as China and North Korea to justify their actions. If such democratic government such as US or UK can do this, why not the other governments? Totalitarian government can abuse their power and justify their actions by stating that other nations are doing the same thing. In Egypt, there were people who have uploaded videos to show the atrocities committed by the government; these instances social media is used for the good. Even if social media is cut off, people are able to use private conversations to commit similar crimes. This makes it harder for the police to track down people who are planning organizing crimes.
This topic raises an ethical consideration, should there be a group of people in charge of the safety within the community? What is done here, is that a selected group of people are stripped of their power of freedom by the authorities. It becomes unethical since a whole group of people lose their rights due to a certain group within the area, many of these people may simply be just passing by and unconditionally losing their rights of freedom. From here we question how one should either act directly even though it harms the innocent or wait until a specific person or group is found to be guilty. It is always possible to take other actions to directly locate the ones causing the crime, without disrupting the rights of those who are not involved. Although the problem with directly targeting the people involved could result in a bigger mess for the authorities to clean up, therefore it would be best to act as quickly as possible to solve the situation.
It is necessary at times to take out the rights of a couple of people for the greater good. John Locke's social contract explains that we enter into a community for safety in exchange for that safety we have to give up a couple of our rights. That is why the BART authorities' actions where justified as they were trying to protect the protesters and the other passengers on the transit. The only way to diminish these types of crimes is to have constant surveillance of everyone in the community.
There is also another similar situation which happened in London where authorities have questioned whether or not social media should be shut down in order to protect the community. In another sense after the loss of the Vancouver Canucks, many loyal fans decided to riot and subsequently found that it was a good idea to post their presence at the riot on facebook. Without the usage of social media it would become harder for authorities to track down individuals who cause harm to the community.
original article: http://www.onthemedia.org/2011/aug/19/it-ever-ok-block-social-media/
-Purna & Sony
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