The article by Doug Gross at CNN brings to light the ramifications society will face in the coming years. Social media has been a revolutionary technology and its long term social ramifications can only be speculated upon.
"British PM proposes social media ban for rioters"
As the space age changed how we live and the dotcom explosion from the late 90's redefined our society, we are in for a wild ride as government, citizens, and business struggle to maintain their power and control.
From the perspective of the online marketer, this article speaks of great changes and hurdles to how free speech could be redefined within the US society. Given the riots in London and correlating them to the 1992 Los Angeles Rodney King riots, the similarities are striking yet the implementation of the riot organizers is not.
If the same level of rioting hit a major US city now how would the local, state, and federal governments respond. In my opinion, it is safe to assume that the federal government already has operating plans in place to shut down the flow of information through social media sites and cell phone service. This is not an anti government position, just a common sense approach to how a large governing body would maintain social order.
With this in mind, businesses that are heavily reliant upon internet and other forms of digital communication platforms should include this type of civil unrest and the loss of digital communications within their emergency crisis plans. And as an ecommerce marketer the understanding of the communication channels from the digital media side make us a prime candidate in helping business develop this action plan.
Addition to post
This article seems to confirm my thoughts and was released the day after my original post.