A Digitally United Kingdom
Enough is enough. The UK government need to do one of two things; shut up pretending to understand the ideologies of the internet and modern communication or actually sit down and learn something about the online world after 1990.
In the last three months we’ve had four incidents…
- Hazel Blears’ outburst regarding nihilistic bloggers and their effect on politics
- Jacqui Smith’s decision to use 1984 as a blue print
- Andy Burnham’s idiotic idea that we can implement a ratings system on the internet
- The government announced plans to invest huge amounts of money into the digital industries
As you’ve probably noticed, there are three negative points and one positive. The issue really is that the negative and the positive points are mutually exclusive.
Let’s address each of the four incidents separately.
Blears
Blears gave a speech to the Hansard Society back in November about political disengagement and The Guardian printed an extract. Blears most inflammatory statement was that blogging “fuel(s) a culture of cynicism and despair” and that the majority of political bloggers have a “disdain for the political system and politicians”. Maybe when the government begins its investment into the digital industries it will take the time to understand why the politico-bloggers are so angry and why they command such huge audiences. The Guido Fawkes blog was visited five million times this year, so it’s obvious that it’s not only the bloggers that are finding disdain for the system, but also their huge readership. Web2.0 brings with it the empowerment of the people, and if they smell a rat, they are going to talk about it. Online and then offline. If the government is bothered about people talking/learning about it’s issues, then maybe they should sort the issue out at the root rather than trying to cut off the leaves.
Smith
This was probably one of Smith’s scariest ideas: monitor and record every text message, telephone call, email and page visit in a huge database (while she denied that these would be scoured and the content of each would be stored, the point is that they could be scoured and the information could be stored once the database was in place).
Full details of the plans will be revealed in early 2009, with Smith looking to cement public trust. I wonder if we’ll see something huge crop up in the news regarding an incident that could have been prevented had we had such a database? Cynical, me?
Many people will suggest that this ‘surveillance’ may already happen and we simply don’t know about it, but does that make it better? No.
Burnham
I wont bang on about this too much – I know that you all understand that the internet is about education and not censorship. This was the comment that I left on Chris Applegate’s excellent post;
An excellent post, and I’m struggling to add something without swerving into a political tirade. However, who the fuck does Burnham think he is? The lord of the Internet? The keeper of information for the (english-speaking) world? No, he is not.
This recent idiocy seems to be part of a current labour campaign to say stupid things about the Internet. Jacqui Smith wants to record our every thought and keystroke (no innuendo intended) and Hazel Blears is cowering behind her wireless afraid of the Nihilistic nature of blogging and the Internet. Burnham has simply penned his name next to a list of stupid people who don’t understand life past 1990.
Tom Watson has addressed the situation excellently; put it to the community and try and affect change.
As mentioned in my comment, one shining light is Tom Watson who has highlighted exactly how the government should be using the internet.
Digital
If the government is truly interested in promoting the UK as digitally progressive then they need to embrace the ideology. Implement the ideas from grassroots and they’ll grow, try and shine dying industries with a digital cloth and it wont work. We need to educate, implement and then evangelize to be seen as progressive… Not wait for other countries to begin and then try and shoehorn ourselves in at the end.
I’d really like to hear what Simon Collister, Stuart Bruce, Tom Watson and Colin Byrne have got to say (although they’re all hopeful requests, as I know that all four are swamped…)
What do you think about the UK and it’s digital evolution? Will the government utilise the power of the community or will it try and bend the rules?