Last week I took part in a discussion on Voice of Russia radio about the problem of abuse and threats on Twitter. We talked about questions such as what the law should allow and what Twitter’s terms and conditions should permit.
You can listen to the full discussion, in which I joined Vanessa Barnett, a partner at Charles Russell LLP, Carl Gardner, a former government lawyer who writes about law at Head of Legal blog, and Ian Cram, a Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law at Leeds University:
Talking to Liberal Democrats in Whitehall about Cameron’s misguided talk of social media bans during riots, the reactions range from the bluntly oppositional to the intriguing repeated suggestion that Cameron himself misspoke and didn’t really mean to suggest anything more than looking at how the police can best use existing laws.
So far, so good.
The one caveat to watch out for is that in other areas Conservative ministers such as Ed Vaizey have shown a strong liking for self-regulation by industry. Applied to social media and riots, this could see attempts to encourage the industry to agree sweeping procedures with …
Over on the MHP blog, Mark Pack makes a good point about the calls from some politicians to ban or restrict the use of social networking in response to the riots.
Here’s some of what Mark has to say:
Yet from some commentators and MPs there were immediate demands to suspend, curtail or otherwise regulate social networks. This was echoed today by David Cameron who promised that the government will look into this very question.
However, the number of communication technologies in the firing line is far short of the number involved in the events. Rolling TV coverage gave the events wall-to-wall coverage.
A politician running to lead the B.C. New Democrats says he is refusing to comply with a requirement of leadership hopefuls to hand over the passwords to their social media accounts.
Nicholas Simons, an NDP MLA who’s hoping to run in the leadership race, says he’s left that information off his nomination package.
The party’s intent is to try to ensure there are no skeletons hidden in candidates’ private profiles.
As the report mentions, leaving aside the gauche politics of this, it’s also rather unwise to demand someone hands over passwords when it is a common feature of terms …
A ComRes survey of 101 Parliamentary candidates “who are likely to win or retain their seats” has found very heavy use of social media.
Around half the Parliamentary seats in the UK have not changed hands even once between different political parties in the last forty years, which helps explain why overall levels of take-up amongst MPs and candidates is usually on the range modest to quite good (though in fact often compare very well, for example, with large UK firms).
However, as this survey indicates, there are much higher than average levels of take-up amongst those were the election result is …
Welcome to the concluding part of a two-part series about the real impact social media (or social networking) is having on politics in Britain. Last week I looked at the groups which face extinction; today it’s why pundits searching for the impact of social media on politics in 2010 are looking in the wrong place.
For the third general election in a row, people are lining up to debate whether or not this one will be the internet election; the election when politics radically changes in the face of the technological change that has already swept the world.
Welcome to a two-part series about the real impact social media (or social networking) is having on politics in Britain. In part one I look at the groups which face extinction, whilst in part two I will look at why pundits searching for the impact of social media on politics in 2010 are looking in the wrong place.
What impact has the introduction of cheap colouring printing technology had on British politics? Almost none. Certainly many more leaflets are colour than used to be the case, more target letters contain colour inserts and a generation of amateur designers have had the …
As we covered earlier this week, the Liberal Democrats now have a new social network – ACT. Unsurprisingly one of the most common comments made since its launch has been, “how does this fit with Facebook?”. The party’s previous decision to have a heavy emphasis on using Facebook, both for its centrally inspired social networking activities and also as the tool recommended and supported for widespread use at the local level, was one largely made by myself when working there, so it’s a question that interests me too.
By David Loxton
| Wed 25th November 2009 - 11:49 am
Today sees the public launch of ACT, the Liberal Democrats’ new social action network. This is the second launch in our three-part strategy,following on from the new-look libdems.org.uk.
ACT is a place where supporters can connect with one another, organise events and campaigns, share photos and videos and talk about politics.
Our aim is to reach a community of Liberal Democrats that extends beyond the formal boundary of party membership. So although ACT will be maintained as a Liberal Democrat supporting community, it is open to non-members as well as members.
The site has been running for a few days after a soft-launch to get the content started, but there is now a link to it on the Home Page of libdems.org.uk and other Lib Dem sites. It will also be promoted through various Lib Dem email lists.
ACT is built on the Californian-based social network platform Ning that has great usability and, with its use of Ning Apps and the OpenSocial framework, will allow further innovation and customisation.
We plan to develop a number of bespoke campaigning and fundraising apps over the coming months to extend the capability of ACT.
The third part of the web strategy, launching in December, is a completely new Members’ Website that will deliver party news, information and campaigning resources.
Peter Martin @ Katharine,
There’s no misunderstanding. If we do include the mathematically zero case we can say your proposed Guaranteed Basic Income Policy is a way o...
Mary Reid In a delicious irony, someone sent one of those dubious offers as a comment on this post! It was binned of course, but not before we had time to see that they w...
Ken Westmoreland Hi Michael,
Since 2012, French citizens abroad (as in outside French sovereign territory) have had dedicated constituencies in the National Assembly - before...
Fiona Shaw We met Neil when I was as a fresh-faced(ish) official reporter at the Scottish Parliament in the very early days and we became firm and long-standing friends. ...
Chris Cory @Jenny Barnes. Regarding carbon capture, I am not qualified to comment on the science behind CCS, although clearly government advisors are happy with it, but I...
Today sees the public launch of 
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