Freedom for Facebook?

15 Jul 10 | Uncategorized

David Cameron has been using valuable parliamentary time to express his shock and/or horror at a Facebook page dedicated to Northumbrian gunman Raoul Moat.

The group, R.I.P. Raoul Moat you legend! <3, currently has over 35,000 members. Despite what Cameron and Conservative backbencher Chris Heaton-Harris — who raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions — imply, it seems at least half the people commenting on the page actually disapprove of Moat having any kind of “legend” status conferred on him.

But details rarely matter when politicians swing into somethingmustbedonery. In a surely pointless move, Cameron has contacted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg and demand, er, something. What, exactly, we don’t know. A no 10 spokesman has said that the government is “not in favour of censorship”,

Facebook has already clarified its position on the page, saying it’s a forum for debate and does not breach the site’s rules. It seems unlikely that Zuckerburg will budge on this point, and he’d be correct not to.

So the new-ish prime minister will be snubbed. What then? Well, as one caller to Radio Five Live put it last night, if they can block Facebook pages in China, why can’t they do it here? Cameron’s not going to follow China’s Internet policy (as No 10 has made clear), so one wonders what the point of Cameron’s semi-patrician, semi-populist stance is?  And where this condemnation of free expression of opinion sits in the coalition’s freedom agenda?

UPDATE: the page’s creator has taken it down, but has said, rather confusingly: “A few of us came to a decision [to take the page down] but it’s going to be up again running.”

Of course, there are still several other similar Roaul Moat groups and pages active on Facebook

Facebook refuses to ban Raoul Moat tribute page

15 Jul 10 | Index Index, minipost

Facebook has refused to remove a page dedicated to gunman Raoul Moat following criticism from the Prime Minster. During yesterday’s (July 14) Prime Minister’s Questions Conservative MP Chris Heaton-Harris called on David Cameron to contact the social networking site and request that the page, which contains a “whole host of anti-police statements” be withdrawn. Cameron, indicated that he would apply pressure for a ban, emphasising that Moat was a “callous murderer” who did not deserve support. However Facebook indicated that they would resist any approach, highlighting that “Facebook is a place where people can express their views and discuss things in an open way as they can and do in many other places. We believe that enabling people to have these different opinions and debate about a topic can help bring together lots of different views for a healthy discussion.” The “RIP Raoul Moat You Legend!” group has attracted over 36,000 members so far although not all posts express support for the killer.