Get out your candles Facebook, there's about to be a blackout.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/08/two-thirds-support-social-media-blackout

This article I feel is talking about the most crucial argument relating to social networking and the internet in general at this time, should it have some form of censorship or should it remain something that is completely free of government laws. This article uses the recent England riots as an example of why there is a need for authority to step in and make a 'blackout' at times of civil unrest, and it is not just the authority themselves who think this as the article states ' Three-quarters (of people polled) agreed that governments should have open access to data on social network users in order to prevent co-ordinated crime.' This is a crucial issue because despite the blame the government is putting on social media such as Facebook and the BBM network for orchestrating the riots they are also using it for their gains in the justice system to bring people to account  for their actions and that wouldn't have been possible without the use of the social networks in the first.

Of course freedom of expression campaigners greatly oppose the actions, stating in the article:  "These kinds of actions would weaken the UK's position against authoritarian regimes who censor Internet access. As we live more of our lives online, people should be conscious of the amount of power they're potentially handing over to government." Both our powerful arguments. Morozov in 'The net delusion' (Morozov,2011) argues that: 'The way forward is to acknowledge that the the public pressure to regulate the web is growing and that not all of the growing regulation should be resisted because the Internet is the sacred cow of the libertarian movement. He goes on to say we should: 'invest ones energy into seeking broad public agreement on what acceptable, transparent. just and democratic procedures by which such regulation is to occur should look like'

So if Morozov is right the debate people should be having is not whether there should be censorship and control over the Internet. (this is inevitable if we don't want to see such violence we saw in the summer where social networking undoubtedly played a part.) It is what and how much is appropriate. Our society isn't giving up on Freedom of speech just yet.