Blaming the Internet

Published by

Clarissa

August 12, 2011

The discussion of the London riots has moved into the ever-boring and extremely predictable terrain of blaming the Twitter. One boring pundit after another tells us how the riots either would not have happened or would have caused a lot less damage had the Internet not interfered.

This is the trick that lazy minds love the most nowadays. No matter what happens, let’s blame the bloggers, the Twitterers, and the Facebookers. The reasons for this are clear: the traditional journalists are losing the competition with the free sources of information online and it makes them rabid.

I have been reading this really great novel called The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar. The book was really impressive until its last thrid where the author launched into the same old tired anti-blogging rant. Tobar is a professional journalist and his resentment towards bloggers overpowered his talent as a fiction writer.

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6 responses to “Blaming the Internet”

Patrick

August 12, 2011

Can we make a distinction between ‘blaming’ the internet and honestly admitting the impact social media had on the development of the riots? I agree, blaming the internet is akin to blaming the gun in a murder. However, we have to recognize the impact the tool has in making matters worse.

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Mike

August 12, 2011

I seem to recall that they have been quite a lot of riots over the years in the UK and worldwide for that matter. I was there in 1990 in the UK when some of them were occurring.

Did the Internet or social media somehow cause or contribute to these as well? I sure don’t remember seeing any smart phones or internet kiosks in the UK then, but maybe somehow they’d jumped ahead technologically by twenty years and I didn’t notice.

I think social media and the internet is just as likely to dampen the propensity to riot as to incense it — after all, look at all the reasons liberals have had to riot over the last decade, and most of us just sit on our asses behind computer screens rather than go out into the streets and fight for what we believe in.

Any new technology brings out the hatred and superstition, and this is no exception.

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Clarissa

August 12, 2011

The French revolution did a lot more damage than the riots. Somehow people managed to kill, loot and destroy without relying on Twitter.

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1. el
  
  August 12, 2011
  
  But they had great reasons for the French revolution. One can’t compare the badness of the situation in society then and now in 1st world country, England.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    August 12, 2011
    
    And yet the riots were invented a lot earlier than the Twitter. Like a whole lot earlier. 🙂
    
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    1. Tim
      
      August 12, 2011
      
      Blasphemer !
      
      How dare you say that the earth is only 3000… wait, wrong text.
      
      How dare you say that there was anything before twitter ?!
      
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