I am a dinosaur of the internet. I was there when it was still a world of hobbyists, undiscovered by advertisers or pornographers. I was in college, studying 'media', we were the only course allowed the passwords to access this exciting, yet slow moving, world of text and low resolution images. Time in this world was strictly metered, and with the limitations of the technology, this meant that most of your visit would have been spent in the online equivalent of an abandoned bus station, waiting for a clapped out Number 7 to take you to the next destination.
I missed the really early days, the days of usenets and newsgroups, purely by virtue of not having the requisite nerdiness to pursue these incomprehensible exchanges. My brother did though, bringing back dispatches from this unusual world and displaying them with a joy I could just about understand. So, computers can 'talk' down phone lines. How could we know how earth shattering that would become?
Now I immerse myself almost totally in the online world. It is where I do most of my work, how I communicate with most of my friends and where I get virtually all of my news. My mobile phone is no longer a phone, more a handheld 'net portal. I know email address's in the way I used to know phone numbers.
I guess that's why I decided to take last week off. Entirely. No Twitter, Email, no News... Oh god... No News... How would I cope with no news and No Twitter... What would happen if I thought of some piece of disposable wit about a political decision? Who would I tell? My girlfriend doesn't actually find me that funny... On the 'net I can usually get a few 'LOL' messages if I fire a good one... Where would I get that pathetic little ego massage that comes with the magic words "... Has retweeted you"
As it was it turned out to be no big deal. Not like an alcoholic saying that they will take a 'month off to prove they don't have a problem' it was more like stopping watching a particular TV show. You find something else to do. You fill the time. You notice, but that's all... I didn't miss it. I read a lot of books, I went out to dinner with my girlfriend (who, now and again, reads this thing - Hello babe!) I hardly thought about Right V Left, or which SPAD had set what stupid thing on Twitter or any of that...
So now I'm back... And it seems I've just missed a Twitter Blackout... Well... I technically took part in it, without really having any intention to do so, or any knowlege of the background. Seems Twitter may censor certain words in certain territories, a plan that certainly fails to acknowledge the creativity of those with 'hidden' messages. Codes and Cyphers stretch back thousands of years, they are a technology as old as the written word.
I have difficulty seeing how they would implement such a scheme, but no difficulty seeing why. After last year, with the Arab Spring, the U.K 'Riots' and subsequent clean-up, the Superinjunction fiasco amongst other events, the pressure on Twitter to take some responsibility for the 'content' must be immense.
Should it be though? Are Nokia responsible for what I blog? How about Apple? I might want to edit this later... Perhaps it's Vodafone's responsibilty... Or even my electric company?
No... It's my fault... Not the fault of those who enable. In the same way that Google are no more at fault for piracy than the street map that directs you to the Market that sells pirate DVDs. The fault, or more precisely the responsibility lies with the originator of the 'content'
Of course I believe that Twitter should not filter content based on region, then again, neither should telephone or Text services... (witness the amazing recent campaign in Pakistan to forbid various words from SMS use... A list which made it round Twitter in about 5 seconds and introduced me to a lot of novel curses, both in Urdu and in English)
That said, the originator should know that free speech always has a price. It may be government harrassment if you disagree with them, or social alienation if you contravene the 'norms'. Every idea worth espousing comes up against some resistance. To be truly brave a person has to put their name behind their opinion.
I, for one, have hid behind the Twitter Hive Mind to voice opinions that I would have felt uncomfortable about otherwise, to engage in debates that I would otherwise excuse myself from either to avoid personal attack (abortion and Religion being the major points that just seem to attract the internet nutters to your door) or to engage in some Spartacus style Streisand-ing and add my voice to a (sometimes illegal) groundswell or meme.
Is it wrong for Twitter itself to want to excuse itself from becoming the mouthpiece for any and all 'anonymous' forces?
It's a difficult question. I love free speech, I'm even able to divorce the concept from the content when some idiot uses it to justify their small minded 'hate Speech' or nonsensical religious bullying. I do worry for it though... I worry that enough people will use it as a shield that it will take on the same perceived tarnish as those once beautiful words 'Human Rights'
Maybe... maybe all of that...
but maybe I've just been reading too much Christopher Hitchens and I need to get myself back on the newstrain... pronto...
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