Twitter Censorship

Susan Brannon
Is the censorship by Twitter connected to the recent SOPA/PIPA proposal?  It seems strange that once everyone blacked out and petitioned the SOPA deal, Twitter decided to censor tweets.  Who is to really decide what tweets are approved and which ones are not?

As we know, Twitter was a major resource for the gathering of thousands in the Arab Spring and a resource for thousands to keep people on the outside involved in the situation.

As a journalist, twitter is a main aspect for me to follow issues and concerns and I sure that it is the same for activists. So now what? Will I not be able to follow a tweet from Syria because, the U.S. government decides that I, an American should not know what it going on over there?  Will I not be allowed to really know what is going on over there?

I have been covering war, physically from the inside and I know that what makes it into mainstream news, is not really the reality many times over and over.  I can understand the global governments are concerned on the Arab Spring spreading onto other revolutions in different countries.  Well, it already has. 

What about our own 99% vs the 1% Wall Street Occupy sit ins?  I believe that this censorship should be scraped, done with and it should not have been a nano second of a thought or consideration for Twitter.  Here is why:

This takes away from our freedom of expression
The freedom of the right to assemble and organize
The freedom to communicate with those we want to communicate with from any border
Twitter is selling people out who need a place to have a voice
Twitter is committing social suicide
If censorship starts to happen, then we all loose.
Twitter is putting themselves in the place of the government's mercy.  Not run by them, but in the end will be run by the government.

Twitter said, "no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal."

Okay, so the government can tell us what, who and where we can speak. 
There will be a Twitter for Democratic countries and a Twitter for the other.