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.

The Twitter Experiment

I've been using Twitter for a little while now and I am already bored with it.  I have 5 followers and I am following those same 5 people.  I mean no offense to my faithful followers, but I can't understand why anybody would want to follow me.  I'm not being self-deprecating as I normally would be, I am asking a legitimate question.  I don't offer anything of any use and I don't think I'm all that entertaining.  Personally, the life and thoughts of an unemployed technician don't really compel me to read. The one thing I could see coming about is MySpace syndrome.  This is, he with the most friends wins.  To me, this is the biggest problem with the social networking sites altogether.  Most of the real people that I have as friends on MySpace (as opposed to bands and TV shows) I know in some capacity or another, I don't just friend people to up my numbers and make myself look more impressive.  This is where Twitter is headed.  I don't want people to follow me simply to pad their numbers and expect me to follow them.  I'm trying Twitter to see what the big deal is and so far, I am not impressed. I'll continue to use it, and see if I can find a use for it, but 140 characters is not enough for me.  This post would be plenty off tweets already.  I'm not telling anybody to follow me or quit following me, I just want to know why people follow me.  Also, if you decide to follow Ashton K., will he follow you?  Or President Obama?  That's all I have to say about Twitter for this week.  Have a good evening.

The Twitter Experiment

Tara commented on my previous post the same concern I have.  I don't know what to do with Twitter, I don't see the big deal.  This is true.  First of all, I don't want to use it to tell people where I am every minute of the day.  I kind of value my privacy too much to do that.  Unfortunately, being unemployed does not make for interesting tweeting.  I can see some good uses for this technology especially with my old job. I used to find myself in the middle of large, noisy factories with a technical problem which made hard to hear on the phone.  Having the whole engineering department in one Twitter group would have been helpful.  Technical service could really be improved with this service and make things more efficient, especially with photos enabled.  So there is one practical use for this service.  I am assuming that users can have updates sent to their cell phones or Blackberries. As far as personal use, I think it could get tired after a while.  How long will people want to keep following each other or celebrities?  I haven't even looked at a celebrity site yet and I'm already tired of that aspect.  I have a feeling the general public will have fun with it for a while, help work out the bugs, improvements will be made and grow tired of it.  I also see this and other technologies disconnecting people from one another.  That will have to wait for another time.

Tweet!

I have decided to see what the big deal is behind this Twitter thing.  Being a tech geek, I figured it was my duty to check this out.  So far, I see no specific reason why I should be on there other than to bore everybody to tears.  I do, however, see some possible uses, but also some definite problems.   If you can't take my Tweeting, please tell me and I will delete it from the sidebar.  As I said on there already, I still won't join Facebook. Let me know what I should ultimately do with my Twitter account.  Right now it's just for the ramblings that echo in my head and my ideas about this technology.  Give me some time and I will post what I think (like anybody wants to read that).