Comments on: Disturbing development at Twitter: countries will silence tweets http://blogs.reuters.com/anthony-derosa/2012/01/27/disturbing-development-at-twitter-countries-will-silence-tweets/ Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:58:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: fredmcclimans http://blogs.reuters.com/anthony-derosa/2012/01/27/disturbing-development-at-twitter-countries-will-silence-tweets/comment-page-1/#comment-236 fredmcclimans Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:35:39 +0000 http://blogs.reuters.com/anthony-derosa/?p=492#comment-236 It is indeed a sad day when free speech - especially on a selective level - is enforced through "open" media channels. That said, given the state of pervasive communication that exists in our world today, I'm fairly confident that if you block a tweet in one country, but make it available in another, the masses will find a way to work around that restriction. Taking away the communications channel is a band-aid, and does nothing to silence the message. Close one communication channel, and people will find another to get their message across. - Fred It is indeed a sad day when free speech – especially on a selective level – is enforced through “open” media channels. That said, given the state of pervasive communication that exists in our world today, I’m fairly confident that if you block a tweet in one country, but make it available in another, the masses will find a way to work around that restriction.

Taking away the communications channel is a band-aid, and does nothing to silence the message. Close one communication channel, and people will find another to get their message across.

– Fred

]]> By: paulmwatson http://blogs.reuters.com/anthony-derosa/2012/01/27/disturbing-development-at-twitter-countries-will-silence-tweets/comment-page-1/#comment-235 paulmwatson Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:31:06 +0000 http://blogs.reuters.com/anthony-derosa/?p=492#comment-235 Censoring a tweet in Country X could bring more attention to it in the rest of the world than not censoring it. Especially if Country X is on the news radar and the people in Country X are trying to get the word out rather than use social media for internal organisation. Hopefully backchannels stay up for internal organisation. And it is interesting that Twitter seem to have made it suspiciously easy to change your country setting so allowing you to see tweets censored in your country... Censoring a tweet in Country X could bring more attention to it in the rest of the world than not censoring it. Especially if Country X is on the news radar and the people in Country X are trying to get the word out rather than use social media for internal organisation. Hopefully backchannels stay up for internal organisation.

And it is interesting that Twitter seem to have made it suspiciously easy to change your country setting so allowing you to see tweets censored in your country…

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