William Hague issued the warning against silencing Facebook, Twitter and the BlackBerry network at a meeting of COBRA, the government's crisis response committee, on 9 August, after vandalism and looting had spread across London to Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere.
Two days later Mr Cameron nevertheless gave a speech in the Commons in which he said the government was “working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services".
According to John Kampfner, the chief executive of the free speech lobby group Index on Censorship Mr Cameron was keen to impose restrictions as the crisis deepened and public concern grew.
But sources said that Mr Hague opposed shutting down internet services at the COBRA meeting, despite widespread claims they were being used to encourage and organise disturbances. He said it would undermine pressure on repressive regimes to allow access to political web content and reduce their spying on citizens.
The Foreign Secretary's fears quickly proved justified. The state-run Chinese news agency, Xinhau, published an editorial during the week of the riots charging the British with hypocrisy.
"We may wonder why western leaders, on the one hand, tend to indiscriminately accuse other nations of monitoring, but on the other take for granted their steps to monitor and control the internet," it said.
"They are not interested in learning what content those nations are monitoring, let alone their varied national conditions or their different development stages."
But in the end, the British government did not seek new powers to restrict the internet. Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry representatives were summoned to a meeting with the Home Secretary two weeks after the riots but it focused on how police could improve their use of the technologies to gather intelligence and disseminate useful information.
In a speech today to the London Conference on Cyberspace, an international gathering of government officials, business leaders and civil society groups, Mr Hague said free speech online was one of the "fundamental building-blocks of democracy".
"Cultural differences are not an excuse to water down human rights, nor can exploitation of digital networks by a minority of criminals or terrorists be a justification for states to censor their citizens."
"We reject the view that government suppression of internet, phone networks and social media at times of unrest is acceptable," he said.
"We saw in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that cutting off the internet, blocking Facebook, jamming Al Jazeera, intimidating journalists and imprisoning bloggers does not create stability or make grievances go away. Journalists and bloggers must be allowed to express themselves freely and safely and within international standards.
"The idea of freedom cannot be contained behind bars, no matter how strong the lock."
The conference aims to help establish "rules of the road" for how states behave on the internet, amid warnings of growing cyber crime and espionage. Mr Hague said agreement "must be pursued with the same intensity as efforts to eradicate global poverty or tackle climate change".
"They are not interested in learning what content those nations are monitoring, let alone their varied national conditions or their different development stages."
But in the end, the British government did not seek new powers to restrict the internet. Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry representatives were summoned to a meeting with the Home Secretary two weeks after the riots but it focused on how police could improve their use of the technologies to gather intelligence and disseminate useful information.
In a speech today to the London Conference on Cyberspace, an international gathering of government officials, business leaders and civil society groups, Mr Hague said free speech online was one of the "fundamental building-blocks of democracy".
"Cultural differences are not an excuse to water down human rights, nor can exploitation of digital networks by a minority of criminals or terrorists be a justification for states to censor their citizens."
"We reject the view that government suppression of internet, phone networks and social media at times of unrest is acceptable," he said.
"We saw in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya that cutting off the internet, blocking Facebook, jamming Al Jazeera, intimidating journalists and imprisoning bloggers does not create stability or make grievances go away. Journalists and bloggers must be allowed to express themselves freely and safely and within international standards.
"The idea of freedom cannot be contained behind bars, no matter how strong the lock."
The conference aims to help establish "rules of the road" for how states behave on the internet, amid warnings of growing cyber crime and espionage. Mr Hague said agreement "must be pursued with the same intensity as efforts to eradicate global poverty or tackle climate change".
By Christopher Williams taken from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8862335/Cameron-told-not-to-shut-down-internet.html
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