Censored Tweets

Twitter wants to be available in all countries and for good reason. Having a worldwide user base is a necessity these days, but is it wise to conform to censorship laws in every country? This is, essentially, what Twitter is agreeing to do. Their blog post expresses that they will be able to delete tweets on a country-by-country basis depending on text.

It’s hard to believe that the web site whose name was emblazoned on the Arab Spring protests (Google search “Twitter Revolution”) would now like to prevent anything like that from happening again. There’s a lot more at stake says Mark Gibbs in Forbes Magazine, Twitter could easily be sued by numerous governments if the filter fails at any point. They are better off taking the hands-off approach and allowing the tyrants to be the bad guys when they shut off access to Twitter or the entire Internet.

For a whole lot more on this story, visit the Storify site. I will continue this conversation in the comments section and elsewhere on the Internet. I care what Twitter does to a point and that point is when somebody else comes in to take their place.

In the Future...Internet and Politics

It's the 21st century and nearly 75% of the population of the United States has access to the Internet.  Many of us use the Internet as a method of communication whether they write a blog, participate in online discussions or create and upload videos to YouTube.  The Internet is a tool for the free exchange ideas and a have for free speech and should be treated as such.  To date, no legislation has been passed that limits free speech or free expression on this medium, but it is not the time to breathe easy.  Unfortunately, we have politicians who do not understand the true power of this technology and think of it as a novelty.  One senator referred to the Internet as, "a series of tubes," while criticizing a bill that supported net neutrality.  Net neutrality would prevent ISP's from charging fees to companies to get higher priorioty on their network.  That's not what this post is about, though, it's about something more serious.

The comment that was made by the senator at the time was not all that unique and told me and many others just how out of touch politicians are.  The scariest fact is that he and others who are just as clueless are the ones who have the power to enact legislation to regulate the Internet and other technologies.  How can politicians create laws about something they have little or no knowledge about?  This is not an issue about Democrats or Republicans, it about both sides of the aisle, how ignorant they are about technology and about the people that vote for them.  The Internet is largely unregulated and it should stay that way.

The content on the Internet is, for the most part, unregulated, as it should be.  It's like a country that has no government and yet, somehow, it works.  There is a criminal element as well as vandals and bullies and, by conventional logic, should be pure chaos.  But it's not.  Out of the chaos comes help in the form of anti-virus companies, software providers who patch problem areas that are exploited and ordinary people who post warnings for others.  It's a cooperative effort for the most part that has lasted so far and is showing no sign of letting up.  The Internet is no longer the novelty that it started out to be.

We are living in an age where communication between anybody, anywhere is a reality.  Years ago, the only ways a person could get heard is by writing a letter to the editor of the local paper or call a radio talk show and hope to get on the air.  The Internet allows us to air our concerns about anything and e-mail lets us send our public officials messages quickly.  We cannot allow out-of-touch politicians to make laws regulating a technology that they do not and will not take the time to understand fully.  We, however, must use the Internet responsibly and keep it from coming under the rule of government.  Luckily, those who do understand it are keeping it as safe as possible for the rest of us.

I am not one to preach politics, but this year many senators and all of our congressmen in the US come up for reelection.  Take the time to learn how much the candidates really know about technology and where they stand on the issues.  One of the biggest current issues today is Net Neutrality, which is important to maintain.  So far, the US government has not passed any law that has regulated content, but it doesn't mean that they won't try (the only laws that have been passed are updates to older laws to acknowledge the Internet).

I hope you enjoyed this week of looking into the future.  I enjoyed writing all of these, including this one.  What are your thoughts?  What part of the future do you have a feeling about?  I would love to read your visions.

Nine Tenths of the Law

Yesterday's flashback post inadvertently led me to think about an aspect of social networking that has been overlooked. I mentioned that I still have everything I have ever posted on any of my sites or anybody else's site (I did a few pieces for Kloud's old site). I have had sites with several paid hosts, Blogger.com and Wordpress.com and have collected everything I wrote before I left each service. This is very important to me. This is also why I do not post original material on any social networking sites.

I have a few things posted on MySpace, but I either don't care about them or they're reposts from previous blogs. Why is this important? Go to your MySpace or Facebook account and find the export or backup button. I'll wait. What? You can't find it? Of course not, it doesn't exist. This concern came to the forefront not too long ago when Facebook bought it's competitor, FriendFeed. Those with accounts approached critical mass when they wondered what would become of their stuff should Facebook dispatch them in short order. None of these sites have a way for users to save their data, but the companies have it backed up on their systems.

The ultimate question is who owns this data? If MySpace decides that they don't like me for one reason or another and kicks me off, I lose access to my stuff. It remains on their servers, however, and they can do with it what they want. What if Facebook pulled the plug on Friendfeed? All of that data would be in the hands of Facebook for their own purposes and the original posters would have no recourse unless they wrote it in a text editor, copied and pasted it into the site and saved the original (that's a hint, people).

The stuff I write is important to me and I am not about to give it up to anybody. I have no problem sharing it with anybody who wants to read it. This same idea also applies to pictures and anything else that makes it on my site. The same applies if anybody else posts on my blog, the post does not belong to me, but to the author. So that's why I don't post on social networking sites.