Social media is going dark, but it's not another SOPA protest.
Nevermore will the open and transparent virtual world of social media be so open, despite being a little more transparent. Twitter unveiled a new censorship policy that is governed by the rules of different countries. If you tweet from Canada, then you're probably unaffected by the new rules. It's people in North Korea or Thailand who will find it difficult to view a raunchy tweet fresh off the fingertips of Howard Stern.
The move by Twitter is one that violates all kinds of free speech or access to information laws that we should be standing up for and championing their inclusion in societies where they don't exist. The whole point of this for the social media giant is gaining access and money in these countries.
Rather than be appalled at the way Syria chokes its citizens, Twitter is congratulating these regimes and accepting these controls over information as legitimate.
If Twitter doesn't comply with these censorship reforms, it won't have access in these countries, and instead of showing a little backbone and refusing to have their service knocked down to that of a PR tool for a repressive government, Twitter execs bowed low. There were two options: say no to censorship and be banned in some regions of the globe, or allow censorship of any tweets that may offend somebody or some government.
Any tweet that is deemed offensive in China will still be readily available to view, retweet or respond to in Canada. Twitter is actually completely unavailable in China. Maybe if Twitter cuts down what can be viewed in that country to just the state-controlled account, things will change.
Of course China's leader Hu Jintao will not be able to follow anyone but his own government. That may lead to further leniency. Jintao may, in turn, allow Putin's Twitter feed inside the Great Wall of China. Kim Jong-Un is in his 20s, so I'm sure he's all over Twitter. He and Jintao can tweet each other about basketball and fun new ways to make the West more terrified of them.
Twitter used to block some tweets that linked to copyrighted material, following requests from the owner of the material. There was no explanation, but now, Twitter will give reasons for banned content. I'm sure that doesn't really matter to the Thai who wishes to access a tweet from Josh Lewis but can't because Twitter says her government thinks it would be bad for her. Sure that's more transparent, but it's still unacceptable.
Maybe not coming to a compromise, and having the state of some of these countries just ban Twitter outright would be better. Maybe then people would get restless at the inability to tweet and challenge their governments to allow a wholly uncensored social media network in their countries.
When people in these parts of the world want a free Internet, they will ask for it, or more likely demand it. Then these social outlets should feel free to host their services in those countries.
