{"id":143428,"date":"2024-08-10T03:55:03","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T10:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=143428"},"modified":"2024-08-10T03:55:03","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T10:55:03","slug":"a-week-of-unrest-and-a-week-of-silence-from-big-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2024\/08\/10\/a-week-of-unrest-and-a-week-of-silence-from-big-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"A week of unrest &#8211; and a week of silence from big tech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy BBC<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/2048\/cpsprodpb\/fb0d\/live\/a4a7f540-565e-11ef-a362-b7789ae7e807.jpg\" alt=\"A man at a riot in Rotherham, with fire in the background\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image caption,Rotherham was the scene of some of the riots in England this week<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Graham Fraser<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Technology reporter<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Published10 August 2024, 00:06 BST<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For days, similar scenes have played out across England and parts of Northern Ireland &#8211; unrest, communities in fear, a huge police presence, with the flames being fanned by social media.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For days, journalists at BBC News have been contacting big tech companies, trying to find out what they are doing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whatever it is, they don&#8217;t want to talk about it &#8211; the messaging app Telegram has been the only firm to issue an on-the-record statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is hoped the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cpdlvlxpydjo\">tide has started to turn<\/a>&nbsp;on the streets. But if they hoped that by keeping quiet they would avoid further scrutiny, the tech firms may well be wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I think it is horrendous they are not taking more ownership of what is happening&#8221;, says Baroness Martha Lane Fox, one of the leading lights in the UK tech scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She knows big tech from the inside, having sat on the board of Twitter, as it was then called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Generally, they don\u2019t like getting involved in politics &#8211; it doesn\u2019t serve them well&#8221;, she told the BBC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Given the UK is a relatively small market, in global terms, she&#8217;s &#8220;not surprised&#8221; by the silence &#8211; but says it should not deter the government from acting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The lack of accountability and serious regulation that is taking this on is something I think that should alarm all of us&#8221;, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"What-have-the-tech-companies-said-so-far\">What have the tech companies said so far?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Very little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meta &#8211; the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp &#8211; has made no comment at all. TikTok, Snapchat and the messaging app Signal have also remained silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A well-placed source at Snapchat told BBC News the company remained in close contact with the regulator, Ofcom, and the UK government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Telegram, meanwhile, was in the news after&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c624r77gnm2o\">a list purporting to contain the names and address of immigration lawyers<\/a>&nbsp;was spread online after starting life on the messaging app. The Law Society of England and Wales said it treated the list as a &#8220;very credible threat&#8221; to its members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Telegram did not comment specifically on the list, but did tell the BBC that its moderators were &#8220;actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Calls to violence were explicitly forbidden by the messaging platform&#8217;s terms of service, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there is X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Elon-Musk-and-a-war-of-words-with-the-Prime-Minister\">Elon Musk and a war of words with the Prime Minister<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/2048\/cpsprodpb\/0276\/live\/1d0583f0-565e-11ef-a362-b7789ae7e807.jpg\" alt=\"X owner Elon Musk\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image caption,X owner Elon Musk was criticised for comments he made about the riots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>X, formerly Twitter, has not responded to any of our requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In relation to the riots, there have been false claims, hate and conspiracy theories&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cze5gd1jzkeo\">on the platform.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Elon Musk bought it in 2022, he reduced its content moderation. A year later, far-right activist Tommy Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/technology-67331288\">was reinstated to X after a five-year ban<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last weekend, Robinson was posting inflammatory messages to his followers on X while relaxing in Cyprus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>X may have been silent this week, but its owner has not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While commenting about the riots, Mr Musk tweeted civil war is inevitable\u201d &#8211;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5ydddy3qzgo\">a post condemned by the spokesperson of the prime minister<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Musk then posted &#8220;why aren\u2019t all communities being protected in Britain?\u201d, and #TwoTierKeir \u2013 a hashtag used over&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/czx66dkx3wlo\">accusations of \u2018two-tier policing\u2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr Musk also deleted an image he had shared, which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cp35w0kj2y4o\">promoted a conspiracy theory about the UK building<\/a>&nbsp;&#8220;detainment camps&#8221; on the Falkland Islands for rioters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"Why-have-tech-companies-kept-quiet\">Why have tech companies kept quiet?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/2048\/cpsprodpb\/ed29\/live\/e8595d60-565e-11ef-a362-b7789ae7e807.jpg\" alt=\"Police officers in the UK dealing with a riot\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Image caption,Several police officers have been injured in the riots.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I think that tech companies are often hesitant to wade into politically charged situations&#8221;, Matt Navarra, a social media expert, told BBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;I think they fear alienating portions of their user base or becoming entangled in regulatory battles.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said it is a &#8220;strategic calculation&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;By remaining silent, they hope the public attention will shift elsewhere, and they can avoid direct responsibility,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The companies are, he says, prioritising their bottom line over &#8220;public safety and social responsibility&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam Leon Smith, Fellow of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT said the silence was &#8220;incredibly disrespectful&#8221; to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Media analyst Hanna Kahlert at Midia Research suggested they did not want to say things in public they could for fear of being held to those comments at a later date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;They are probably going to be very cautious about how they comment on it, because that&#8217;s going to define their strategy moving forward &#8211; what they are able to do, what their algorithms promote, which for them are activities that brings in ad revenue.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"What-could-happen-next\">What could happen next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>More powers are coming the regulator&#8217;s way via the Online Safety Act, due to come into force early next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ofcom published an open letter to platforms saying they should not wait until then before taking action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But some &#8211; including the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan &#8211; are already questioning whether that is enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prime minister said on Friday that &#8220;we&#8217;re going to have to look more broadly at social media after this disorder&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Prof Lorna Woods, a professor of internet law at the University of Essex &#8211; who helped shape the legislation &#8211; told BBC News: &#8220;If the Act were fully in force, it wouldn&#8217;t catch all the content. So while organising a riot would be caught, some of the dog whistling tactics and disinformation would not be.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a poll by YouGov this week, two thirds of the British public want social media firms to be held more to account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Big tech, it seems, has nothing to say. But they could find that others are taking them into a very different future in the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy BBC Graham Fraser Technology reporter For days, similar scenes have played out across England and parts of Northern Ireland &#8211; unrest, communities in fear, a huge police presence, with the flames being fanned by social media. For days, journalists at BBC News have been contacting big tech companies, trying to find out what they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}