Social media has played a huge part in the political and social world over the last year. Consider its links to uprisings in the Middle East and now riots in the UK. On the one hand we have idiots like Tottenham MP David Lammy calling for the suspension of RIM’s BBM service ( thanks David, we’ll just all go somewhere else ) and on the other hand you have feelgood stories about the use of Twitter and Facebook to co-ordinate clean-up operations following riots in the city of London and elsewhere.
The fact of the matter is that social media is just a tool. Yes, a fast efficient communications tool, but nonetheless, just a tool. It’s the users of these tools who are responsible for their actions, something that politicians and lawmakers have been struggling to understand for many years. Especially so in the p2p world where every man and his dog, who has had any contact with a p2p instance ( no matter how small ) seems to attract the mostly unwarranted attention of music and movie companies who are stuck in the prehistoric days of product distribution.
There will always be another tool around the corner on which to pin the blame. Seems like we just can’t pluck up the courage to blame ourselves.