Twitter Throws the Gauntlet at Censors in China and Iran

Asked to prove its will to fight censorship in those two very repressive countries, the co-founder of Twitter said his Internet social network is working on technology to beat censors at their own game.


Twitter's co-founder Evan Williams at the Davos Economic
Summit announcing his intentions to fight back censorship
attemps in Iran and China (EPA photo)

Speaking at the Davos Economic Summit, Evan Williams, also Twitter's chief executive officer, revealed that his company is working on "interesting hacks" to avoid blocking attempts by both Iranian and Chinese censors.

Twitter became instrumental in the pro-democracy protests in Iran. Activists were able to fool censoring attempts by taking advantage of the many ways to access Twitter and thus communicate with one another.

Williams also expressed admiration for Google's decision to confront the Great Firewall of China and announcing its intention to leave that country after being the target of several cyberattacks, allegedly perpetrated with the backing of official censors. But he added that given the fact that his network is much smaller than Google, he must try other anti-censorship alternatives.

The Financial Times:

“We are partially blocked in China and other places and we were in Iran as well,” he said. “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.”

Mr Williams said Twitter had an advantage in evading government censors through operating as a network of internet and mobile applications, rather than as a single website. “Twitter is a network that is accessed in thousands of ways.”

Obviously, Williams declined to give any details about the counter-censorship technology Twitter is developing, only adding that third-party developers are working on it.

Twitter has some nerve to take on the big goliaths of cyberdeception. But we are cheering for this insolent David and wishing him the best of luck.

Comments

[jason brown]

. . .

Congratulations to Twitter, and Google, for taking this important stance against censorship, not just in China, but everywhere.

. . .

[Beth Charette]

Keep in mind that China is copying the censorship policies that were in place in the US in the 40's and 50's when China says America was truly a great nation.

Since then, with the collapse of all communication restraint the US has:

1) Fallen to the bottom of the developed world in terms of student accomplishment
2)Has more people in prison per capita than any nation on earth, including China, North Korea and Iran
3) Has lost the battle for intact families
4) Must rely on students imported from China, India and the Arab world to fill its graduate school science research departments.

In other words, let's be careful how we criticize censorship. When we ourselves had censorship of the kind China is enforcing, we were on top of the world in every way.

Now we are at the bottom of the developed world, and falling still further every year with our high school graduates and most of our bachelor degree college graduates having no idea of much at all except that they have "rights." Just ask them at Penn State how to throw up en masse on public streets in the evening and their students will tell you all about it.

Beth

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