Twitter as a Critical Infrastructure
Jun 16 2009
There are too many benefits to lose by not supporting tools like Twitter for people who need them and are willing to use them.
Do not be fooled into thinking that by changing your time zone to match Iran that you would flood the Iranian security services with disinformation helping to protect those in that country. During the 2008 US election, Twitter maintained a steady stream of information on the election and the US news agencies did not have a hard time pulling out information. If a large portion of people using Twitter did change their time zone and location to Iran you are more likely to cause the service to become overwhelmed than confusing foreign security services.
Twitter is the Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty of our time
It has crossed the line and is no longer just some tool for web savvy people to share what they are doing and discuss current events. It has become among other things the 21st century's version of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Both are services created at the start of the Cold War to help discourage Communism.
Twitter has possibly become more successful at RFE/RL main mission - providing access to news and information to people who live in countries were the state controls how and what is reported. The added feature of allowing discussion between citizens in these areas with the rest of the world is one point where Twitter excels. By allowing open communication in these areas it has helped spread the ideas and democracy and has become a critical tool similar to how RFE/RL was during the Cold War.
Twitter had become a critical infrastructure in the world's discussion
The originally schedule maintenance of Twitter would have resulted in the service being down during peak hours in Iran, but after it's users called for that maintenance to be delayed it was rescheduled during peak North American hours instead of the peak hours in Iran. If Twitter is still at a point that a schedule maintenance brings down their entire service, a service that has shown itself to be very useful during times of national and international interest like the Mumbai Attacks in India, H1N1 outbreak in Mexico and the current events in Iran, then Congress or some other group should step up and provide funding to ensure the service is not open to such outages.
While news agencies are closing foreign bureaus and the world is becoming more interconnected, tools like Twitter have become very valuable. Providing an avenue to keep people informed on what is going on in the world.
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