anders deutsch

The topic of our summit are the Arab revolutions and the social media. This is a sensitive issues, since not all revolutions have been finally victorious yet and the revolutionaries could be persecuted by the old (or new?) regimes. Thus I raised the question, whether one could restrict social media (twitter, youtube, etc.) coverage of the summit. To this there was the clear answer (as far as I understood it): We are at a social media conference and thus cannot restrict social media! I do not get the point. Social media coverage does not have to be unlimited. One should be able to discuss, which coverage is suitable for a topic or not. One definitely needs to consider security issues. And even if it is impossible to restrict all coverage, one can tell everybody present that one asks not do certain things. Then at least unintended leakages can be controlled.

I want to be able to say things (also at public events), which will not be published. It is something different if somebody publishes an audio or video recording or a direct transcript of what I said and if people say that I said. In the latter case I can always claim that I was misquoted, in the first cases there is proof I said something. But if there is a danger of everything being quoted and published, then there is a restriction to what can be said in (semi) public and I would consider that a loss to debate culture.

I would like to have a discussion about the ethical limits of social media coverage.