Social Media not to blame for the #UKRiots

After a shocking, frightening week it appears that the state is once again a la mode. After eventually returning from Tuscany last week, David Cameron has been exercising the full extent of his executive power; lecturing police on tactics, dropping hints to the judiciary and promising a clampdown on social media - quite the turnaround for a decentralising Prime Minister.

The Premier told parliament last week that Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry should take more responsibility for their actions (I’m presuming all iPhone users were tucked away at home playing Angry Birds, ignoring Whatsapp and Livepin messages about the ‘100% off sale at Curries’). But whilst indignant reactions and talking tough are understandably vogue in the midst of the chaos, what Cameron is proposing has dangerous implications. Right wing rage may trend in the face of the kind of criminality we saw last week but as the nation calms, decisions that affect the general public will not be so well received.

Scapegoating social media at this point and suggesting a clampdown is as far as I’m concerned, Cameron looking and talking tough for the purpose of image. If set in motion however, joining the world’s anti-social media ranks would put the UK government in some rather unsavoury company. Believe me, this would be worse PR for the UK than last week’s anarchy.

Furthermore, should there be a clampdown on social media, where would the restriction end? Defining who is out of line and what is the wrong sort of content online is a fairly difficult matter – in such a grey area what else could and would a government be able to censor?

Jeff Jarvis last week asked “Who is to say what communication and content should be banned from whom on what platform? On my BlackBerry? My computer? My telephone? My street corner?” A question I’d imagine David Cameron and his advisors would struggle to muster a sufficient answer to without perilously tip toeing around the matter of free speech.  Twitter has already refused to close accounts of rioters to protect ‘freedom of expression.’ 

Social Media needs to be understood in the context of freedom of speech and whilst it has the potential to be a double edged sword it is clear that the benefits outweigh the negatives (Have we already forgotten the Arab Spring?). Social media keeps information flowing online, connecting people to what they are most passionate about and empowering them in the process. Restricting this is imposing a restriction on the public.

The fact of the matter is that social media as a combination of content sharing, a myriad of potential mediums and an online public is a modern phenomenon - rioting, looting and wanton criminality is not. Targeting social media was not the right response from Cameron.

Save us from the surveys!

A quick take on the two business surveys which came out this morning, namely the Business Trends Optimism Index from accountants BDO (which I’m beginning to think should be renamed the Pessimism Index) and the CIPD staffing survey.

The Pessimism Index fell to 95.1 in July from 95.6 in June and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) say that more employers plan to cut jobs than increase staffing levels in the third quarter.

Both surveys point to a drop in confidence in the ‘fragile’ manufacturing sector as a cause which is indeed worrying, particularly for one who makes his living from engineering PR, but I am not going to throw myself off a bridge just yet. Two reasons, firstly manufacturing makes up just 13 per cent of UK GDP. Now, admittedly, that is still a fairly large chunk, but for both surveys to point to poor performance in the sector as a reason for a downgrading of overall business confidence feels a little bit over the top. Manufacturing and a ‘rebalancing’ of the economy may be the key to a sustainable recovery but that goal is going to take years not months!

Secondly, anecdotally I have one multi-national manufacturing client who has just enjoyed their best quarter since 2006 and another who has recently told their salesforce to stop selling as they can’t keep up with orders! In short, I do wonder whether (and I hope) conditions on the ground are better than what the surveys are telling us.

PS: I saw BDO partner Peter Hemington interviewed on BBC Breakfast News this morning. He seems like a nice chap but I have to take him to task on one point, namely his extraordinary generalisation about UK manufacturing, namely that, “these days manufacturing in the UK is more about bolting things together that are made in the Far East". Errr …. I beg to differ and I can think of multiple factories within a 30 minute drive of where I sit which could prove him wrong!