Reuters

Twitter will shortly hurl out a giveaway apparatus for users to handpick and tell selections of tweets, reflecting a company’s joining to sojourn a neutral, interactive height rather than turn a media company, CEO Dick Costolo says.

The new apparatus will concede users, including journalists, to manually curate and arrangement tweets to accompany violation news events.

“We’ve famous for a prolonged time that for events in a genuine world, a common knowledge is on Twitter,” Costolo pronounced during a Online News Association discussion in San Francisco. “We wish to emanate an ability to curate those events.”

Costolo discharged conjecture that Twitter had skeleton to work like a normal media company, following a new pierce to shorten entrance to tweets usually by a website or executive app. Previously, many users could review tweets by third-party applications with additional features.

Observers had widely likely that Twitter, founded in 2006, is vigilant on treating a tide of published tweets most like a normal media product that it has full control over, and that it can assign for advertising.

“It’s not about being a destination,” Costolo said. “I’m a outrageous follower in syndication. Platform companies always outflank and exist indicate solutions and particular products.”

The preference to tie control over tweets came after a association realised it had invested poignant resources in a service, though other companies were creation income off of it though adding “accretive value,” Costolo said.

“We were spending all this money” discharge feign accounts and urge a Twitter experience, Costolo said, though users still had a “choice” of “experiences.” Fake accounts might be combined by spammers or impersonators.

But a association has betrothed to clear Twitter’s full interactive intensity once it has regained control over how users entrance Twitter opposite desktop computers and mobile devices.

Soon, users will see twitter boxes, famous as cards, embody live facilities that will demeanour zero like a 140-character messages units that they developed in a early days of a service.

Costolo offering examples of interactive features, such as live polls for a NBA All Star diversion display real-time formula directly within a twitter box.

“We wish to quit to a universe in that a 140 characters can offer as a heading for additional functionality,” Costolo said. “We’d like that to embody things like real-time data, even an focus functionality.”

One of a services accessible on third-party clients though not from Twitter itself – a ability for a user to download a full repository of his or her tweets – will be accessible by a finish of a year, Costolo predicted.

In a hour-long talk, Costolo also suggested a boiling gait of enlargement during his company. Twitter, that relocated into new offices in executive San Francisco in July, now boasts 1,300 employees, some-more than 3 times a headcount only 18 months.

Article source: http://technologyspectator.com.au/twitter-boss-defends-companys-new-direction

LONDON (AP) — Twitter blamed systems failures — not a vanquish of trade around a Olympic games — for an outage on Thursday that saw people around a universe knowledge problems accessing a micro blogging site for some-more than an hour.

The San Francisco-based association pronounced a outage was caused by a “noteworthy” double disaster in a information centers. When one complement fails, a together one is meant to take over, though dual systems coincidentally stopped operative during around a same time, Twitter said.

“I wish we could contend that today’s outage could be explained by a Olympics or even a cascading bug,” Mazen Rawashdeh, VP of engineering, pronounced in a matter apologizing to users. “Instead, it was due to this infrastructural double-whammy.”

He apologized for giving a users “zilch” instead of a service, observant a association is “investing aggressively” in a systems to equivocate a repeat situation.

Visitors to a site on Thursday were greeted with a half-formed summary observant that “Twitter is now down.” The fields where a reason for a outage and a deadline for restoring use were apparently meant to go were filled with mechanism code.

Sluggishness or outages were reported for some-more than an hour in countries in a Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some users were means to post updates by their phones or third-party applications.

Tweets about a Olympic torch, that is wending a approach by executive London, still poured in, despite distant some-more solemnly than progressing in a day.

When a Olympics open in London on Friday there is approaching be an even bigger spike in use of a micro-blogging site.

While a site was influenced Thursday, many self-proclaimed “Twitter refugees” flooded Facebook with complaints about Twitter. As common following outages, “WhileTwitterWasDown” was one of a most-talked about topics on Twitter in a United States. Users burst jokes about their regained capability as a outcome of a downtime — or going outward to get some sunshine.

Twitter pronounced in Mar that it has some-more than 140 million active users and that a use sees 340 million Tweets a day.

It was once scandalous for a down times, though has given softened a performance. Still, a perfect recognition of a site — and a complicated use by up-to-the-second reporters — meant that even medium outages fast turn news. In June, Twitter gifted problems that lasted about dual hours. The association blamed a technical glitch.

Social networking sites are approaching o accept an rare swell of activity by sports fans during a Olympics. At a new UEFA European Football Championship final, users dismissed off some-more than 15,000 tweets per second, environment a sports-related record for a site.

Social media users were already angry about an progressing outage that influenced Google’s chatting services. The Mountain View, California-based association pronounced Thursday morning that a infancy of users were saying blunder messages and incompetent to use a Google Talk service. The issues were resolved 5 hours later.

___

Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.

___

Cassandra Vinograd and Raphael Satter can (now) be reached at: http://twitter/cassvinograd and http://twitter/razhael

Article source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/26/twitter-outage-cause_n_1706097.html?utm_hp_ref=technology

Twitter

How do we get a word out about a criticism of Twitter when it’s Twitter that’s indispensable to get a word out? It was tough, generally in a box of a hastily orderly one for Saturday meant to criticism a site’s new process of censoring certain tweets, or posts, in some countries.

Some users widespread a word by regulating a black-bar proceed (above). But, like Twitter itself, a criticism translated to many opposite emotions and reactions:

Twitter

As Saturday became Sunday in some tools of a world, for those who did boycott, this man’s chatter spoke volumes about how some people feel about Twitter:

Twitter

Yet others pronounced maybe another (better-organized) criticism is in order:

Twitter

This person, concerned in a “Occupy” movement, was ripped between protests:

Twitter

On Twitter’s worldwide “trending” chart, a criticism did not make a tip 10:

Twitter

Twitter, contacted by msnbc.com Saturday, declined to criticism on a boycott.

But one of a tweets posted by a Twitter’s communications group (@twittercomms) suggested “#TwitterBlackout reading,” including analyses by a Center for Democracy Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a associate from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society for opposite perspectives on a new policy.

“Let’s be clear: This is censorship. There’s no approach around that,” wrote Jillian C. York, a EFF’s executive of general leisure of expression, on a blog. “But alas, Twitter is not above a law. Just about each association hosting user-generated calm has, during one indicate or another, gotten an sequence or supervision ask to take down content.”

Zeynep Tufekci, a Berkman Center fellow, wrote that a new process is “not done tough to circumvent. Twitter willingly enclosed instructions on how to change your nation (‘manually override’ a country setting that is dynamic by IP). we don’t know about you, though does this sound like Twitter is caving? Also, obviously, Tor users and substitute users will be means to entrance a calm sincerely easily.”

Twitter said Friday a users “now send a billion tweets each 4 days,” and that it will not be filtering tweets, something that is “neither fascinating nor realistic. With this new feature, we are going to be reactive only: that is, we will secrete specific calm usually when compulsory to do so in response to what we trust to be a current and germane authorised request.”

Related stories:

• Twitter censorship process leads to boycott
• How to simply by-pass Twitter’s censorship
• Activists and bloggers fear Twitter censorship
• Twitter to bury tweets in some countries

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Article source: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/28/10260364-twitter-boycotted-saturday-by-some

Twitter was confronting a recoil from a users final night after a website said
it had a record to bury tweets on a country-by-country basis.

The explanation has sparked critique that a site is vacating from its
free-speech beliefs as a looks for ways to lift a tellurian footprint
and profits.

In an online statement, a San Francisco-based association told users it could
now “reactively secrete calm from users in a specific country”. Twitter
shielded a record as a proceed of ensuring a limit probable audience
could perspective a calm while adhering to specific laws in different
countries.

Previously when Twitter was forced to undo a twitter it would be taken down
worldwide. Now particular tweets can be blocked in specific countries. An
instance it gave was Germany, where deification of Nazism or publishing
Hitler’s Mein Kampf is illegal. If a twitter pennyless German law, Twitter could
retard users in Germany from reading it though continue to concede others
worldwide to see it.

“We haven’t nonetheless used this ability,” a matter from Twitter read. “But if
and when we are compulsory to secrete a twitter in a specific country, we will
try to let a user know, and we will clearly symbol when a calm has
been withheld.”

Free debate advocates are disturbed a new record will inspire repressive
governments to insist Twitter takes down vicious content, generally given
a website’s purpose in assisting to organize mass protests during final year’s
Arab Spring.

“While censoring tweets that mangle a law in particular countries is
preferable to holding down a calm altogether, we’re going to be
monitoring this really closely to safeguard Twitter’s joining to giveaway speech
isn’t watered down,” pronounced Mike Harris, conduct of advocacy during Index on
Censorship.

The pierce is partial of a excellent line Twitter has to step as it attempts to expand
into new countries. Venture capitalists have invested millions in the
association and design to see good returns. So Twitter needs to enhance its
assembly bottom – now around a 100 million symbol – and find ways of
introducing adverts.

Twitter users were discerning to indicate out that a company’s new eagerness to
cruise censoring tweets is in sheer contrariety to a formerly stated
mantra that it is “the giveaway debate wing of a giveaway debate party”.

However, Twitter’s new proceed to deletion tweets on a country-specific basis
is not unusual. Google, eBay and Facebook all have identical systems in place.

Tyranny’s Scourge: Twitter protests

*Iran: Long before a Arab Spring, Twitter helped protesters co-ordinate
demonstrations opposite a regime after a doubtful 2009 presidential
elections. Academics have given questioned how distinguished a partial a website
played compared with word of mouth and mobile phones, though it was nonetheless
dubbed a initial “Twitter revolution”. The regime frequently blocks entrance to
Twitter.

*Egypt: As a Arab Spring took hold, Twitter became one of a series of social
networking platforms to assistance prepare antithesis movements. “Egypt”,
“Jan25″, “Libya”, “Bahrain” and “protest” were a many renouned hashtags in
a Middle East during a initial 3 months of final year.

*China: As a authorities are wakeful of how antithesis army have used
Twitter, a website is banned.

Reaction: Word on a web

@el_audiman: Communication is a tellurian need. If we bury Twitter, a world
will find another proceed to demonstrate itself. Don’t kill a tweet.

@chris_coltrane: It’s cold that Twitter wish to bury tweets to assistance bring
leisure of debate to places like China.

@declandf: we support Twitter censorship, if a initial thing they bury is
people holding photos of their breakfast.

@FakeChrisRuen: Twitter process most closer to genuine censorship than anything in
SOPA. Where’s a blackout? Where’s a boycott?

Article source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/technology-gadgets/twitter-faces-user-backlash-over-move-to-censor-messages-16110222.html

Twitter announced Thursday that it has record in place to selectively retard tweets in specific countries.

Previously, if a supervision anywhere in a universe done a legitimate ask to retard a tweet, Twitter had to retard that chatter around a world. “Starting today, we give ourselves a ability to reactively secrete calm from users in a specific country—while gripping it accessible in a rest of a world,” Twitter said in a association blog.

This is what you’ll see if a Tweet is censored in your country, Twitter says.

“We haven’t nonetheless used this ability, though if and when we are compulsory to secrete a Tweet in a specific country, we will try to let a user know, and we will clearly symbol when a calm has been withheld,” it continued.

The apparent doubt here is what Twitter will do when leisure fighters, like those who participated in a Arab Spring final year, chatter their gainsay or use a use to classify protests. Will Twitter determine if a odious supervision wants to overpower their possess people?

Twitter thinks that’s an doubtful scenario, according to Danny Sullivan, writing in Marketing Land. Authoritarian governments customarily possibly omit Twitter or close down a whole service, a association says. They don’t ask to bury specific tweets.

When Twitter blocks content, it will post a notice of a movement to Chilling Effects, an online rights corner plan of a Electronic Frontier Foundation and a law schools during Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine and George Washington University, and a Santa Clara University School of Law.

Twitter’s Chilling Effects page now shows that a association has blocked a series of tweets since they embody purported violations of a Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA).

Twitter explained in a help center that a ability to retard tweets was required for a use to enhance around a world. “If we accept a current and scrupulously scoped ask from an certified entity, it might be required to reactively secrete entrance to certain calm in a sold nation from time to time,” it said.

Despite a new ability to censor, Twitter maintains a joining to giveaway countenance is as clever as ever. “One of the core values as a association is to urge and honour any user’s voice,” it pronounced in a blog. “We try to keep calm adult wherever and whenever we can, and we will be pure with users when we can’t. The Tweets contingency continue to flow.”

Follow freelance record author John P. Mello Jr. and Today@PCWorld on Twitter.

Article source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/248827/twitter_prepares_to_censor_tweets_country_by_country.html