BBM and UK Student Protests

“Education not Segregation!”

“Torie Scum!”

“Fuck Fees!”

These are the screams of university students and young people alike, protesting a lack of affordable, accessible education. These are the cries of future doctors, lawyers and businesspeople; the next generation of society demanding a fair go at making a difference. These demands for education reform are echoed in the graffiti scrawled across vandalized police vans and the windows of parliamentary buildings; reinforced by the signs being held by masked Marxists and spotty skinheads. In symphony with young academics are the hollers of anarchists, looters, vandals and thrill-seekers mixing the message of democratic education. These are the UK student protests.

Students at the November 10 protest

Tertiary education means a lot of things to a lot of different people; from the pursuit of academic excellence, to better career prospects, to finding or establishing ones independence, to just an excuse to party. One thing is for sure though, a college education is becoming increasingly expensive across first world nations as a global recession, job shortage, and general economic climate have led to fee increases over the last few years. One of the most notable recent fee hikes in the Western world has been in the United Kingdom, where  university fees have almost tripled over the past few years.

Understandably, UK students were a bit pissed about this increase. So pissed, in fact, that 50,000 of them marched through London on November 10, 2010. This relatively peaceful protest turned ugly near the end, with 14 injuries and 35 demonstrators arrested. Unsatisfied with the results, or lack thereof, another national walkout was organized on November 24 that took place across many cities including London, Leeds, Cambridge, and Birmingham. This protest brought out not only university students, but high school students too, angry that university might not be a feasible option anymore. "I want to study medicine," said the first one who was in his first year of A Levels. "What the fuck am I supposed to do to pay the fees I'm now going to face?"

Peaceful protests against university fee hikes are nothing unique to the UK. Protests of a similar or even larger scale have been coordinated across the globe, most notably in the recent Occupy Movement. Like most social movements of the last few years, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter played a role in facilitating these protests. More interestingly, however, was the use of another form of social media: BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM. BBM is a messenger service that allows users to send and forward messages of unlimited length to a mass amount of contacts. As blogger Jonathan Akwue has stated, BBM proved so popular because it is fast, free, and most importantly, private. As social media continues to fuel civil movements around the globe, multiple arrests have prompted a need for anonymity when organizing protests. BBM also has a strong presence among young people in the UK, unlike the US where it is predominantly a professional tool. It has been estimated that a massive 37% of people aged 16 – 24 are using BlackBerrys in the UK.

However, like many tools, BBM has been used for both good and bad. As well as helping to coordinate legitimate demonstrations, the anonymity has helped to coordinate lootings and robberies. Messages sent over BBM are encrypted which made it hard for authorities to monitor them, especially when the UK police were struggling with outdated communication technology already. Following the effectiveness of BBM in the student protests surveillance-oriented governments such as United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are actually banning BlackBerry devices to prevent similar outcomes. This may seem radical, but even in the western world, politicians such as Prime Minister David Cameron have considered ways of ceasing social media during times of “civil unrest”. A poll by Opinium Research conducted in 2011 showed that 38% of people support this idea.

Example of a BBM message circulating at the time of the riots. Obtained by The Guardian.

So, should governments be shutting down social media during social movements? There doesn’t seem to be a clear answer. Certainly, there are considerable advantages. Immobilizing the ‘real time’ organizational efforts or looters and rioters could potentially reduce dangerous and expensive consequences. As British Conservative MP Louise Mensch (ironically, one of Parliament’s more active social media users) says, “If riot info and fear is spreading by Facebook & Twitter, shut them off for an hour or two, then restore. [The] World won't implode”. While this logic seems simple enough, others such as Jim Killock have argued that shutting down the free flow of information online is affecting the fundamental right to free speech. Just days after Prime Minister David Cameron began approaching the issue,  Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) came under fire for shutting down mobile service on subway stations in San Francisco. The service was shut down because of a protest was being organised following a fatal shooting by a BART police officer. With various civil rights groups outraged and the FCC investigating the service blackout, this issue tends to be a complicated one between finding the balance between safety and free speech.

Compromising such an important right as free speech could lead to a bigger public outcry than the initial protest. As we’ve seen from Egypt’s experience during the Arab Spring movement, shutting down the technology is not necessarily enough to stop people organizing protests or demonstrations. It becomes, however, more of a reason for people to take action.

Social media can also be used as a means to find the people guilty of looting and vandalism. Companies such as Research In Motion (creators of BBM), Facebook, and Twitter, have agreed to assist authorities by divulging communication, but even this is met with resistance. Shortly after they declared their cooperation with the authorities, Research In Motion (RIM)’s website was hacked with a message urging them not to divulge information. The hackers, TeaMpOisoN, claimed they would release private RIM employee information if RIM released customer communication.

Personally, I think that it would be ineffective for authorities to shut down social media platforms during times of civil unrest. The public backlash could be immense, especially in first world countries where internet access is viewed as a new form of human right. While it may hinder the process of organizing demonstrations, history has shown that people will come together to fight for a cause regardless of whether they hear about it through a friend, see a flyer, or read it on Facebook. Countless social movements, including Berkeley’s own free speech movement, were facilitated long before anyone was tweeting, posting, or liking statuses.