Censoring social media during riots: good news, mostly

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 the police that require no votes in Parliaments. Unlike the hotly contested area of online piracy, website blocking and traffic throttling – where some in the industry are keen to strike such deals – there is far less enthusiasm for such an approach amongst social networking firms themselves. Even so, it’s one to watch.