No, they’ve made a compromise that guarantees people will be looking for other avenues of communication. Sorry bro.

While I realize you had to make this change or face total blockage in some countries, it still doesn’t make it right. Playing nice with repressive governments is bad business, period. Just wait til they start hacking you like they did Google.

These aren’t cultural “contours”, they are policies designed to retain control over thoughts, education and expression of the citizens of a nation. 

Where does the slippery slope end?

Twitter is dead, long live Twitter.

1. Selectively censor tweets in some countries, and leave the same tweets visible in other countries (the new system they are instituting).

2. Delete tweets completely, worldwide, when 1 country demands they be censored (the previous system).

3. Refuse to delete any tweets ever, and as a result, have the entire service shut out of various countries altogether.

They’ve made a compromise that is probably going to result in more access to
communication for more people. 

Oh, there’s also option 4: Twitter doesn’t censor any tweets anywhere, and everyone gets unrestricted access to the service.

The only problem with that option is: it’s a fantasy.  It’s not on offer.  Governments, not Twitter, have taken that alternative off the table.

~I drank Lady Gaga’s bathwater~

 (WTF?)

Also has any of ‘em pointed out that you’re quitting facebook over privecy concerns gets kinda nulled when you’re heading to a company that makes it’s money mining user data?

Yea yea whatever. I like +. It feels cozey. And the discussions tend to be epic.

Indeed.  I would say “must” instead of “ought”.  Even in the USA Twitter follows rules.   The rules may be light and they may be to our USA-oriented tastes but indeed they are there.  

The problem I see with Diaspora is that it’s too “geeky” for most users. A social network only works if enough people are using it, and I’m afraid there aren’t anywhere near enough technical people to get this thing flying.

War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

That being said, our ideals are attractive to other people in other nations. Instead of outright self removal of the service from these nations, Twitter can still serve a function, that of communication in general, that helps ease these nations into recognizing a service.

The code of language is a wonderful thing that shouldn’t be discounted outright. So what words are banned. Communication will never completely languish because of censorship. It may be self imposed but it’s not a detriment to the individuals who might otherwise, be caught by their internal monitors. Twitter catches it but I don’t think it’s set up that the national filters will know, just Twitter.

Think of it this way – a man who is very vocal verbally as well as his use of banners is forbidden from using one. Does he stop communicating with the world entirely or does he get creative in his use of words?

If the users don’t like the company policies they can leave. There are other, similar services around. Only, I don’t think most Twitter users give a flying f.

I’m not saying I agree with the decision. Only that it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

Thinking http://status.net/
Anyone know how it runs real world?

This is not a change in philosophy.

That’s part of what’s troubling people so much.  The realization that actually you never were committed to freedom of speech and information.

All of this #jan25 whatnot was just a coincidence, wasn’t it?  It was an unexpected side-effect of what has always been at Twitter’s core: a profit-driven venture to mediate and monetize human communication.  The philosophy never changed, it just got slightly distracted for a minute there during the Arab Spring.

Freedom of information is not being pushed on them.  Like most humans, they want it and are actively seeking it out.  It just happens that US corporations are offering a service which (unintentionally) meets their needs.

Now, US corporations are leaving them hanging.  But whatever, it was always a tenuous alliance of convenience.  Time to find freedom of information elsewhere.

At first I was like, grrr! And then I was like, hmm. This is like the failure of DRM.

The dream of these authorities is to perfectly control the technology. It’s a seductive idea – but we know it can’t be done. People work around it. It’s good for the authorities to be under this spell. We should encourage them.

Yes it will be censored, but it’s not like the average Chinese citizen is unaware of that. They’ve already developed many ways to get around it, although it is a constant cat-and-mouse game.

I think this is good. I wonder if we’re getting hung up on the nirvana fallacy here: comparing something to the ideal, instead of asking whether it is better than what we have now. I believe China + Twitter + censorship
> China – Twitter.

[ducks]