What do Middle East dictators, the London Metropolitan Police Service, the Bay Area Rapid Transit police, the NYPD, and Senator Joseph Lieberman have in common? They all have strong misgivings about social media empowerment, and they all want something done about it.
In a desperate attempt to remain in power, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shut Twitter down in order to stave off a revolution. Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has strongly considered the preemptive blocking of social media sites as a form of riot control. San Francisco mass transit law enforcement persuaded wireless carriers to turn off their signals at rail stations where protesters attempted to gather. The New York Police Department has formed a special unit dedicated to data mining of social networks. And Senator Lieberman is sponsoring an ominous bill called the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, a law that would create a special agency within Homeland Security that could assume control of the national information infrastructure.
The situations described above are in stark contrast with the open government initiatives that seek to empower citizens through information technology and social media. Through these initiatives, the government makes data and APIs available to third-party developers who have a desire to provide solutions. One of the basic tenets behind these initiatives is that techies are not only adept problem solvers, they can also be good citizens who can suggest innovative ideas.
Data and information that is generated by governments ultimately belong to the people. Data and information generated within social networks belongs in those networks. Governments should not interfere with the free flow of information by taking drastic measures such as those described above. Governments should instead refer to their open initiatives and seek the opinion of those techies they have worked with in the past.