Twitter Working to Thwart China, Iran Censors
- By John C Abell
- January 27, 2010 |
- 3:15 pm |
- Categories: Mobile Internet, Search, Social Media
Twitter is developing technology aimed at preventing the governments of China and Iran from censoring Tweets, co-founder Evan Williams told an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Financial Times is reporting.
Williams didn’t detail Twitter’s approach — in part to give no clues to the governments it hopes to confound — but described the work as “interesting hacks.”
”We are partially blocked in China and other places and we were in Iran as well,” Williams was quoted as saying. “The most productive way to fight that is not by trying to engage China and other governments whose very being is against what we are about. I am hopeful there are technological ways around these barriers.”
Last June Twitter was credited with helping anti-government protesters organize and hear and circulate unfiltered news from the outside world. The company’s role in providing such a venue was seen as so critical that the U.S. State Department asked the company to postpone long-scheduled maintenance on its servers during the height of the protests.
Twitter’s efforts to resist censorship come as Google threatens to leave China if it cannot provide uncensored search results, a face-off which has again drawn official United States interest; last week, in a speech widely interpreted as being directed at China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “Countries or individuals that engage in cyberattacks should face consequences and international condemnation.”
Williams acknowledged that Twitter has a somewhat easier technical challenge than say a Google because it acts more as a carrier — like telephone service — than a single destination. Twitter.com at a target is irrelevant because of the multitude of third-party applications, and good old SMS, which deal directly with Twitter’s (one hopes) well-protected server farm.
Twitter plans technology to stop censorship [Financial Times; restricted access]
[Photo: U.S. State Department]
See Also:
- Denial-of-Service Attack Knocks Twitter Offline
- Do Not Taunt Twitter!
- Twitter, Politics and Movements
- Twitter Hacked by ‘Iranian Cyber Army’?
- Iran Bans Facebook pre-Election, Reinforces Dopiness
- Only Google Could Leave China
- Google Fights China; Will Yahoo and Microsoft Follow?
- Google Feud: China Says U.S. Internet Accusations Are ‘Baseless …
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Twitter Working to Thwart #China, #Iran Censors | Epicenter | Wired.com
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