It was all that the authoritarian right could have wished
for: the
official report into the brutal killing of Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich
last year named “an American Internet
Company” that had failed to pick up on a message left by one of the killers
expressing a desire to kill a soldier. The company was then revealed to be
Facebook. War on Facebook was duly declared.
First with the ritual condemnation, because as any fule kno
it is the paper that supports our soldiers more than all the others put
together, was the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, ranting “Facebook ACCUSED ... Lee Rigby family fury as net giant failed to
report murder threat ... BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS”. Yes, Sun readers, take the killer Facebook away from your kids RIGHT
NOW!
The increasingly downmarket Maily Telegraph concurred: “Fury
at Facebook over terror note left by Lee Rigby’s killer”. And the Daily Mail typically
added its own smear as it thundered “Damning
report into soldier’s slaughter by fanatics reveals ... FACEBOOK KEPT QUIET
ABOUT RIGBY KILLER’S PLOTTING”. The Dacre doggies say they knew but kept
conspiratorially schtum!
It was left to the Independent
to draw the obvious conclusion: “The war
on Facebook” was its headline. And Amol Rajan and his team are spot on: had
Michael Adebowale used the Royal Mail to convey his message, they could hardly
be held to blame for not opening the letter en route. Nor could a telecoms provider
be accused for not knowing to listen in to his calls.
This ridiculous blame game could be taken further: someone
sold the killers a car. Do they also have “blood
on their hands”? A filling station provided the fuel that powered it. How
about the owners? A number of food retailers kept the two plotters fed and
watered. The conspiracies could be extended to provide hours of fun for the
why-oh-why merchants. And it would be totally pointless.
There are two facts that the authoritarian press manages to
either ignore or miss here: first is that Adebowale was
about to be put under “intrusive
surveillance” by the security services, but that it took several weeks to
complete the admin work and by the time that was finished, Rigby was dead. That’s
not good enough.
And the second is the idea that Facebook should spy on its
users. Think about that for a minute: it is a platform available to all, just
like any other publicly available communications medium. There is nothing
preventing MI5 from accessing Facebook and doing its own monitoring. So why the
hell didn’t they? Why shoot the messenger for the spooks’ inability to get with
the technology?
That the predominantly right-leaning and authoritarian press
doesn’t ask that question tells you all you need to know. Clueless, ranting technophobes all of them.
"but that it took several weeks to complete the admin work"
ReplyDeleteOh God. I suppose that means another tedious Littlejohn James Bond parody.
"I'll get after Blofeld and the missing H-bombs immediately Sir."
"Not so fast 007. There's several weeks admin work to do first."
And I imagine that FB, in all honesty, won't do a thing unless they're planning to already. They're, simply put, not accountable to the British government. And a China-style block would be electoral suicide.
ReplyDeletethe US and UK (and some others) don't have to have a Chinese/ Turkish style block of Facebook (or Twitter) to put pressure on.
ReplyDeleteThey just have to ban companies advertising with them. At the end of the day they are commercial outfits where revenue is more important than opinion (just like Ryanair). They don't care what any person, politico or hack thinks - but cut their money off and things would change. Ryanair eventually tried to improve their image beause the PAYING public began to react but FB etc don't have a paying public, and the great British public will never boycott something that's useful and free.