Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

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Regulating the Wild West

1 August 2008 / / 0 Comments

I forgot to cross-post here a few paragraphs I posted to Liberal Conspiracy last week, commenting on Andy Burnham’s call for more internet regulation:

It is also contentious that the poor are being disadvantaged by the ‘lawless’ internet – One great advantage of the medium is that it reduces the financial barriers of entry into any given business. Putting online regulation in place will surely restore those barriers.

Later, Unity took Burnham to task at greater length, for misrepresenting John Perry Barlow’s ‘A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace‘ in a quest to defend royalties for the rich music labels, at the expense of new and more equitable business models, where intellectual property is shared or even waived, that are appearing online.
Meanwhile, the CMS Select Committee suggests that YouTube should be better policed, with content certificates similar to those awarded to movies. Taming the Wild-West seems to be on the DCMS agenda.
Although the “wild-west” conception of the internet is probably inaccurate description of most people’s experience, message boards like the misanthropic /b/ board at 4chan certainly do have a lawless air to them. Not only are there no rules governing behaviour, but the participants do not seem to abide by most established social rules, or rules of decency either. But, as this interesting article from the New York Times Magazine shows, even those who are intent on disrupting the lives of others, causing panic without empathy, do seem to operate by a code of sorts, only attacking those they consider to be stupid, hypocritical, inconsistent… or careless:

“It’s not that I do this because I hate them. I do this because I’m trying to save them.”

Islamists in Morocco?

30 July 2008 / / 0 Comments

Writing in the Times, Amir Taheri warns of rising Islamism in North Africa, especially Morocco:

Women in jeans or mini-skirts have all but disappeared from public, along with all females who favoured the colourful dress of the Berber. One sees countless women draped in black that remind one of Hitchcock’s The Birds. … Fewer and fewer places serve alcohol, and parts of the main cities are becoming no-go areas for foreign tourists.

I was in Morocco less that two weeks ago on holiday, and this doesn’t sound like the place I visited. It was difficult, though not impossible, to get alcohol in the old Medinas, but outside the city walls it was not a problem. And I remember being surprised at seeing young, local girls in Western clothing – not hot-pants, admittedly, but certainly figure-hugging outfits, strappy tops, make-up and jeans. Likewise with the Berber outfits, of which we saw plenty. Indeed, it was the black-clad munaqqaba who stood out, because they were an unusual sight. Its true that hijabs reign, but that’s not in itself a sign of Islamic extremism.
Nor did there appear to be any no-go areas for tourists. Indeed, our favourite afternoon was in Meknes, where we cautiously wandered into the back alleys of the Medina, to escape the pungent smell of the souqs. Far from feeling threatened or harassed, we were greeted with smiles and ‘hellos’ around every corner.

Is Labour Really On its Knees?

30 July 2008 /

Amid the cacophony of speculation about the future of Gordon Brown’s premiership, the imminent electoral meltdown, and the future direction of the Labour party, I think one aspect is being marginalised, which is the future of the party at a local level, and in local government. It is clear that current crisis is playing out on a national level, with national and international problems catalysed by Westminster intruigue and a failure of national leadership that can speak to the concerns of the people.
Now, the fall-out from this is obviously felt at the local level, as Labour’s loss of councillors in the May elections demonstrates. But it is not clear that the existential worries currently afflicting Gordon Brown and his parliamentary colleagues are shared by their Labour friends on local councils. In Tower Hamlets, for example, the Labour group recently increased their majority after four defections from Respect, and a by-election win (after a popular Lib Dem councillor stood down for health reasons, no less).
Of course, if the local parties are not suffering from the same crisis of purpose, this is probably to do with the differences between the nature of local and national governance. Localities like Tower Hamlets have very specific problems, to which a Labour council can confidently respond within their current ideology, without having to worry about national unity, or whether the same policy would be effective in different boroughs.
So, as the columnists and bloggers search in vain for a viable alternative to Brown, and a new direction for the party, I wonder whether the most coherent and confident voices might come from local government, rather than the national scene, policy wonks, or the unions. They are ideally placed to comment on pressing issues such as community cohesion and knife-crime, and how other concerns such as the environment and immigration can be dealt with in practice.
These are purely my anecdotal thoughts – what are the thoughts and experiences of other Liberal Conspiracy readers and writers?
Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy.

No more delays

28 July 2008 / / 2 Comments

This notice, when I log on to Internet banking:

One-off online payments that you make from your current account will now, where possible, be sent quicker. In most cases your payment will reach the receiving bank almost immediately and show in the recipient’s account in a couple of hours.

At last! Its a bug-bear that everyone seems to hold. Banks holding onto your money for days at a time for no apparent reason. Now thankfully going the way of the dodo.

Here Comes Everybody

24 July 2008 / / 1 Comment

I’m looking forward to reading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody after listening to the Demos Podcast of their event with him earlier this month.
Particularly interesting are his musings on the future of the Nation State. Since the internet allows people to associate with people in geographically disparate areas, and to associate on ever more specific grounds. If people live and love online, then other types of ‘polity’ might become more politically relevant.

This is a really crazy moment in the history of the Nation State… The pull outwards into smaller, more ethnically coherent groups is actually overcoming what was, in the 20th Century, and argument for economies of scale in Nation States. Whether that is good or bad , I don’t know, it would be such a profound shift that it would transcend good and bad, it would be a new world order.

He was talking specifically with regards to ethnicity – Tiawanese students reading the Taipei newspaper online while studying in New York, say, or Indian immigrants watching nothing but Zee-TV on Sky. I haven’t thought about the implications for multiculturalism in this, but if true, it seems an essentially insular development, where the chance of exposure to new and different thoughts is reduced. In this sense, it is similar to the social gerrymandering that is occurring in the USA, with families moving homes and states in order to surround themselves with like-minded people.
However, I wonder whether the most profound shift might come when people transcend ethnicity as well as geography. With people spending so much time, and actually making money in worlds like Second Life, or building large guilds of allegiences in Eve Online or WarCraft, perhaps those bonds could be the basis for some other kind of nation or ‘polity’ with real power and relevance.

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