Newsletter for 2nd Creative Cuppa Coffee Meetup (14/12/2008)

Dear All,

On the 12th Dec. 2008 Creative Cuppa held a very successful 2nd coffee meet-up in the Café of the David Wilson Library. Many thanks to Amit, Hao, Jay Jay, Rami, Sarah, and Tony for their attendance and lively participation. This time we briefly reviewed the case of the “Mumbai Attacks” and discussed why and how terrorists made use of new communication technologies, such as the Internet, in their extreme actions, as well as how governments should response to this new trend.

Although it was difficult to reach agreement on the role of the state in controlling the Internet and other new communication technologies, there was a beneficial exchange of ideas about the definition of “Cyber-terrorism”. The fact is that the world has already seen a rising trend, whereby terrorists or social extremists increasingly make use of new media technologies, like Google maps and mobile technology, to efficiently organize and carry out terror attacks. But the question is whereby this will become an excuse for governments to place restrictions on people's use of the Internet?

“Cyber-terrorism” is a rather loose definition in that it might mislead people into ascribing the online activities of terrorism as the fault of the new media technologies. This technological determinism point of view may lead us to overlook the human factor. In fact, as we have all realised, the stories of “Cyber-terrorism” become far more complicated once we bring the discussion back into their real contexts. Though it’s true that so-called “cyber-weapons” have been increasingly used by terrorists, it is still the decision of human beings that makes such things happen. Therefore, if we only put our focus on the use of technology, it seems unhelpful in terms of finding the real solution of the problem, and this is really the big issue concerning all of us today.

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Next time we will be focusing on the topic of "online journalism". Thanks for all your attention. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Best wishes,

Jin Shang