Conservatism 2.0

A great post on how the structure of the internet—despite its “libertarian hippy capitalist” roots—potentially facilitates socially-networked, meatspace vigilantism.

All it takes is a right-wing or vigilante version of mySociety, with a less attractive civic vision, and this criminal geo-data can become scraped, distributed, then offered with a Shirky-esque ‘bargain’: ‘I will be outside this crim’s house with a plank of wood at 3am if 10 other people will do the same’. That would be the extreme case, but milder responses are surely inevitable and, to some degree intended. As some proto-Richard Stallman within the Home Office must have put it “information about local criminals wants to be free!