Should RIM have shut down the BBM servers during the riots?

[pctech]

Various media outlets have reported that the rioters have been using BlackBerry Messenger to communicate during the riots.

There were rumours that RIM were going to do this which were quickly denied but should they have done, perhaps from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. to make it more difficult for the rioters to communicate or maybe the operators should have shut down their networks totally?


What do you think?

[solo12002]

No I dont think they should, what they would be doing is taring everyone with the same bursh and thats not the case for example Im in Northern Ireland and no were near London etc.

Secondly, RIM have accepted that their network was used and are working with Police to pass on information as required within the law as it currently stands, RIM was not the only way information was passed around Tweeter/Facebook even My Space.

I think RIM have been fairly fast to and open about their network having been used and have been as open in saying they will pass on information to Police. I think thats been the right course of action they have taken.

[Ben]

Communications blackouts would be an awful precedent to set in the UK. India completely blacked-out text messaging last year for civil unrest/political reasons, but I've seen no proof that instigators of disruption were hampered in the slightest.

I can see why the calls to shut down BBM came about, the thought of the 'rioters' having some sort of tool that allows them to co-ordinate with seeming invincibility would disgust a lot of people, but in reality it's just a messaging app like any other. The beauty of modern communication is that it's almost never anonymous, with digital fingerprints left all over the place, and the authorities can use RIPA extensively (already massively overused for finding out things like, for example, who someone's wife is having an affair with...) to put those who have broken the law away much quicker and easier than if they were driven further underground by imposing blanket restrictions.

Visibility is massively important IMHO. Blocking child porn sites just forces those involved into places that are much harder for us, as a society, to keep watch over. Adding websites that condone piracy to that list is again pretending the problem no longer exists, while the operations of those involved become more covert, and more criminal. Blanket censorship is never acceptable in a democracy - our society functions through the airing of a massive spectrum of views, allowing the vast, vast majority to settle somewhere in the middle-ground. The whole system functions because of the handful of right-wing extremists and lefty nut-jobs that keep the rest of us honest.

The 'rioters', or, as it seems, disruptive and incredibly stupid groups of people with little cause, would have done what they did whether they had BBM or not. BlackBerry, number one smartphone vendor to the UK's youth, has nothing to gain and everything to lose by hampering RIPA requests, and so will make a far better partner for banging people up than, say, WhatsApp, which could have easily been used instead.

There's some hope for our country that calls to shut down BBM were not heeded.

[gorilla]

Absolutely not! This just demonstrates once again how quickly RIM will handover user data. Want access to BIS or BES? No bother RIM will give it up. There's a reason they are suffering and it's not just their lack of innovation.

There are so many cross platform communications tools that are better than BBM that it wouldn't make sense to shut a service that only applies to one manufacturer. It wouldn't take long for people to download other IM apps.

Why should society as a whole suffer at the hands of a few? Yes the riots are terrible, but shutting communications channels to the masses would be much, much worse.

[andyukguy]

Absolutely and unequivocally no.

[DBMandrake]

Definitely no.

What would be next, block SMS, mobile phone calls, email ?

Censor coverage of riots on TV news so as not to "incite" further violence ?

Slippery slope. No thank you.

Like all technology it can be used or abused.

[Hands0n]

I would have to say a catogorical and emphatic "No" to any notion of shutting down communications networks or social media streams. That is the thin edge of the wedge and as I recall the UK government voiced their (our) dislike of Egypt's President Mubarak doing just that during the so-called "Arab Spring" this year.

First off, we cannot go criticising the despotic nations and then go and do precisely the same thing ourselves when it suits us.
Nextly, I do not believe that we can actually trust our Police or Government (local or national) to make sane decisions on when to shut off the communications. Witness how out of control the Police get at times, over reacting, shutting down roads and services that they have the powers to. Often with very disruptive and negative consequences. I would be completely loathe to hand over such powers to these people to shut down the telecommunications of whatever means.

I think it is vitally important to note that whilst the perpetrators of the chaos were using various "networks" to communicate across so, too, were the masses of people being affected in one way or another. Yes, there were some idiots out there who were spreading misinformation about the riots. But is any of that good enough reason to close down for the masses? I think not.

No, we must resist at all costs any notion of Police and governments shutting down public networks.