Big Thumbs Up To Twitter

Webmaster Discussion
#1

Twitter, the world’s largest microblogging platform, on Tuesday sued the U.S. government, alleging that the Justice Department’s restrictions on what the company can say publicly about the government’s national security requests for user data violate the firm’s First Amendment rights.

Tech firms may now report the numbers of requests they receive from the government in broad bands — such as zero to 999, for instance. Twitter would like to be able to disclose the exact number of national-security-related orders received in any particular category — including zero, if that is the case.

Its complaint states that the company wants to report data in a way that reflects the “limited scope” of U.S. government surveillance of Twitter accounts. Unlike e-mail and phone communications, most Twitter posts are public. Unlike large e-mail providers, Twitter does not receive huge numbers of requests.

The government’s position, the complaint said, “forces Twitter either to engage in speech that has been preapproved by government officials or else to refrain from speaking altogether.”

Source

What I love about it is that Twitter is willing to engage in an expensive lawsuit, that won’t earn them any extra revenue, simply because it’s the right thing to do. Bravo Twitter!

#2

Re: Big Thumbs Up To Twitter

It also highlights the other massive tech corporations who like to make noise about the NSA and snooping, but don’t bother to actually put up any kind of real fight for their users. Whenever I hear Google, Microsoft or Facebook talking about this, I’m reminded of when the story initially broke, and the near-identical statements they all made to the public and press, clearly handed to them to read out in response.

#3

Re: Big Thumbs Up To Twitter

I noticed that in the news, like a foot note to the other stuff today. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this one plays out.