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Whereas a significant and positive role is being attributed to Twitter and Facebook in what’s being called The Arab Spring, quite a different picture is now emerging from the rioting in England. Eliminating the causes of the unrest will be a difficult and protracted process. A bit of a diversion is provided by logging onto so-called social media; after all, they offer people an option for communication that the police can’t even come close to effectively keeping under surveillance, to say nothing of shutting down. And this is precisely why the British government now wants a parley with representatives of the various sites in order to develop strategies to somehow get a grip on this “problem” of networking that is resistant to oversight. In North Africa, Facebook, Twitter & Co. have given considerable impetus to democracy; but what are the prospects on the British Isles in this respect? This issue will most assuredly come up for discussion on September 3 at Public Square Squared. It will definitely be interesting. You could almost say: 1984 suddenly isn’t all that far off.