Freedom of speech, Twitterpated

The past week two important announcements in the world of online communication occurred.

First, Google announced it was changing its privacy policy and would begin compiling more information about its users.

Second, Twitter announced that it would now begin withholding tweets in certain countries in compliance with nations’ free speech policies.

While the announcement by Google made some of us uncomfortable, I also understand that Google is first and foremost a corporation dedicated to turning a profit. Collecting user data allows Google to provide more detailed information and advice to users.

However, I am vehemently opposed to Twitter’s change in policy. I remember the role Twitter and other social networking services played in the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement in the United States.

Twitter has allowed protesters, dissidents, students and the unhappy masses of the world to not only communicate and learn from one another, but also to coordinate actions against oppressive governments and corporations.

It is difficult to imagine the massive crowds that gathered in Tahrir Square in Egypt doing so without the ease of communication made possible by Twitter.

It is just as difficult to imagine the gruesome photos of Scott Olsen, the U.S. veteran whose skull was cracked by a police tear gas canister, proliferating and reaching the screens of millions of Americans without Twitter’s rapid content delivery.

Twitter claims it must be sensitive to “different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.”

This is a disgustingly weak-willed claim. Freedom is not a game open to interpretation.
Freedom is not an ideal that differs between countries, nor is it value that can be moderated with 140 characters.

When the dictators of the world starve and beat their people while robbing them of their voices, are they merely expressing an alternative idea about the limits of freedom?

If the forces of oppression want to deny freedom of expression to their people, let them do it themselves. Twitter is under no obligation to assist them.

That Twitter so callously waved away the concerns and anxieties of the global masses in favor of easy profits speaks volumes about the shameless greed of Twitter’s management.

— atcrane@indiana.edu