Twitter Capitulates To Governments, Censors Users 91
An anonymous reader writes "Twitter made a public stance in 2011 to remain a platform for free speech, having helped fuel movements such as the Arab Spring. This past week, however, Twitter is shown to have complied with Russian government demands to block a pro-Ukrainian Twitter feed from reaching Russian citizens, with Turkish government demands that it remove content that the Turkish government wants removed, and with a Pakistani bureaucrat's request that content he considers blasphemous and unethical be censored in Pakistan. Given Twitter's role in the democratic uprisings of the past few years, what do these capitulations bode for future movements? Will other platforms take Twitter's place? Or is the importance to democracy of platforms such as Twitter overblown?"
Re:Blasphemer! (Score:4, Informative)
Rights != Democracy (Score:5, Informative)
Twitter made a public stance in 2011 to remain a platform for free speech [snip] Or is the importance to democracy of platforms such as Twitter overblown?
There are two different things being discussed here, and it's important to keep them separate.
Free speech is a right, i.e., something that governments should not be able to restrict arbitrarily -- whether those governments are democratic, communist, monarchies, whatever.
Democracy is a form of government, and history has shown us that democracy is very capable of taking away rights, just like any other form of government. There is a reason that many philosophers from the ancient Greeks up to the Founders of the U.S. and beyond were afraid of "mob rule." When governmental policy is just determined by majority vote, there are plenty of times when the majority will vote away "fundamental rights" for various reasons (for example, to try to prevent some fear or threat to security).
Free speech is generally a necessary component to promote change in government -- whether that government is democratic or aristocratic or whatever. Thus, the fight for free speech should be about rights, regardless of the form of government. There are all sorts of "democratic" countries in the world who lack a lot of fundamental freedoms, including free speech. And, as recent history has shown us, simply "rebranding" a country as a "democracy" does NOT automatically make it "more free."
Re:It isn't designed as an uncensorable platform (Score:5, Informative)
The real problem is that most people are affected by marketing. Their intellectual growth is stunted early for this very purpose, leaving them ignorant and vulnerable.
Usenet lives; Google Groups is just an interface (Score:2, Informative)
Huh ??
Google Groups is just an interface to Usenet. I suggest you search for slrn and use that or one of the other terminal clients if you want traditional Usenet access.
I'm an active Usenet poster and _all_ of my postings are done from a xterm/pterm using slrn.
Also, if you want access to Usenet outside of Google, then use Eternal September (which works just fine with slrn) and is my current Usenet access method of choice.
OTOH, I do agree with you about one thing - Google's web Usenet client does horrible things to Usenet postings, including double spacing them and not respecting the 72/80 column posting width conventions.
(Oh and BTW, on the latter, if Google Mail can format the plain text version of emails to stay within those limits, then Google Groups should bloody well use the same code for Usenet. :-()