Twitter changed the restrictions on some tweets in some countries yesterday. Before, the general policy was that a tweet would be removed on a global level by Twitter if a government requested that. Yesterday, however, the policy was adjusted.
Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.
While this is – of course – running into criticism as it relates to free speech, many do think that Twitter chose the best option available to them.
Twitter would be banned outright in many countries if it did not agree to restrict Tweets, said Cynthia Wong of the Center for Technology & Democracy.
“The question is: What’s best for freedom of speech?” Wong said. “If Twitter was completely blocked from certain countries, is that really better? It looks like Twitter has done a good job in thinking through how to mitigate the human rights harm in complying with local law.”
Considering how big of a role Twitter has played in past civic uprisings globally, it seems obvious they’re still try to be a tool for the people and a voice to those silenced when they can. We’ll see how well it plays out when it’s first put to use.
Apple’s iPad number are out reflecting the increase in sales over the Christmas season as compared to the quarter before the holidays. Looking at just the sales of the iPad, Apple sold 15 million units up from the 11 million in the previous quarter. This is an excellent jump but Apple also saw the sales of 37 million iPhones and 140 million downloads…on Christmas day. In other words? An excellent quarter that went above and beyond what analysts predicted.
Google has decided to change privacy across all of their properties without giving users the ability to opt out of any of the changes. The idea is that by monitoring user actions across all Google properties (Google Search, Gmail, YouTube) and retaining that data as it associates with individual users, then Google will be able to create more user-specific ads on all platforms. For example, “If someone watches an NBA clip online and lives in Washington, the firm could advertise Washington Wizards tickets in that person’s Gmail account.”
YouTube is now playing 4 billion videos per day to users, according to 
Even though ownership of e-readers and tablets stayed stagnant during the latter part of 2011, the numbers jumped through and after Christmas. Of course, this also coincided with the lower prices of the Amazon Fire and Nook Tablet which gave those who couldn’t afford an iPad cheaper options. 
We’ve all seen our twitter stream fill up with links to the same article and we all wish it was an article we had written. While content should be king in terms of quality getting shared, the article may have better luck passing through the statuses and tweets if it’s introduced during the right time of day. Or on the right day of the week. 
Google is going to protest SOPA tomorrow with the rest of the world. However, it’s not 
