person:alex macgillivray

  • For Twitter, free speech matters — not real names — Tech News and Analysis
    http://gigaom.com/2011/10/18/for-twitter-free-speech-is-what-matters-not-real-names

    “The free-speech wing of the free-speech party”

    Being used by dissidents in Tunisia and Egypt and Iran and elsewhere to communicate information, and allowing virtually anyone to commit acts of “citizen journalism” (as Sohaib Athar of Pakistan did when he live-tweeted the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound) is a pretty vital role to play, and part of the ongoing disruption of media that Om has called the “democratization of distribution.” So it’s refreshing to hear Costolo putting a stake in the ground about freedom of speech. As he put it in his interview, quoting Twitter’s general counsel Alex MacGillivray:

    This isn’t just an idle boast either — Twitter’s commitment to this principle has been put to the test more than once already. In Britain, the company was hauled on the carpet by the British authorities along with Facebook and Research In Motion after the riots in London, because the governing party was considering blocking access to networks such as Twitter and BlackBerry instant messaging. In his Web 2.0 interview, Costolo said that the company resisted this idea, and instead pointed out that many of the Twitter messages about the riot were actually about cleaning up or promoting good behavior rather than inciting violence as many critics of the service seemed to suggest. Said Costolo:

    One of our core values is respect and the need to defend the user’s voice.

    #twitter #freespeech