State Dept asks Twitter to delay upgrades for Iranian protesters?

[nerdgirl 0]

Should the State Department have asked Twitter to delay planned maintenance in order to allow the website to be accessible during Iran’s daylight hours?

Thought this was an interesting story with a twist on the government interaction with private business:

“The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election.”

From Twiiter's own blog: Downtime Rescheduled

“A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight's planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran).”

Undue influence by the Executive Branch or reasonable request?

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[TomAiello 26]

Lame. Twitter is a private business. The State department (and the rest of the government) should mind it's own business and let Twitter mind itself.

Honestly, if Twitter is getting that much traffic from Iran, I'd expect them to want to delay the shutdown on their own anyway. They've been pretty careful to build their brand with events like this, and it'd be silly of them to miss the opportunity. But in the end, it's their business--not the State departments.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[billvon 3,107]

>Lame. Twitter is a private business. The State department (and the rest of
>the government) should mind it's own business and let Twitter mind itself.

Why? Nothing wrong with _asking_ them to do that. It's sort of like asking a US service provider to not shut down during an election or during tax season, for people who get their voting info online or file their taxes online.

If it was a threat, then I'd agree they were out of line.

[TomAiello 26]

Quote

>Lame. Twitter is a private business. The State department (and the rest of
>the government) should mind it's own business and let Twitter mind itself.

Why? Nothing wrong with _asking_ them to do that.

I think that the fact the State department even thought to ask a private business, and wasted the effort to do it, was lame.

The farthest it should have gone was one guy at State having the idea, calling up someone at Twitter and suggesting it. Any official request is too much, in my opinion.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[billvon 3,107]

>I think that the fact the State department even thought to ask a
>private business, and wasted the effort to do it, was lame.

OK. I have no problem with the government asking someone to do something voluntarily, whether it's serving their country, helping out with communications, cleaning up a park etc etc. Good for them for asking instead of creating a new Twitter Control Department or something.

>The farthest it should have gone was one guy at State having the idea, calling
>up someone at Twitter and suggesting it.

Uh, that's what happened. The article discusses the "conversation" a State Dept official had with Twitter.

[TomAiello 26]

Quote

Uh, that's what happened. The article discusses the "conversation" a State Dept official had with Twitter.

In that case, ok.

I didn't read the article. I read the original post, which made it sound like an official State department request ("the State Department asked...")

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[1969912 0]

Very interesting situation. IMHO, a request is OK, but arm twisting is not. Sounds like it was a request.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[nerdgirl 0]

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Uh, that's what happened. The article discusses the "conversation" a State Dept official had with Twitter.

In that case, ok.

I didn't read the article. I read the original post, which made it sound like an official State department request ("the State Department asked...")

Uh ... "asks"? Perhaps your interpretation is not the fault of the OP, eh? How about owning it?

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[TomAiello 26]

Quote

Quote

Quote

Uh, that's what happened. The article discusses the "conversation" a State Dept official had with Twitter.

In that case, ok.

I didn't read the article. I read the original post, which made it sound like an official State department request ("the State Department asked...")

Uh ... "asks"? Perhaps your interpretation is not the fault of the OP, eh? How about owning it?

Uh..."The State Department". That made it appear to me that the State Department had made an official request.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

Very interesting situation. IMHO, a request is OK, but arm twisting is not.

Concur.

In this case, everything indicates that the State Department asked very nicely without any implicit or explicit demands and that the company, based on whatever motives, agreed. From a PR and western marketing perspective, the association of Twitter with the Iranian protests has been golden.

The US government has limited or shut down access to technology at times, e.g., ITAR restrictions. We've asked other nations to limit access as well, e.g., the PSI. We limit terrorist and Iranian regime access to financial resources as consequences for activities.

The flip side -- in what I acknowledge is a more speculative & ponderous line of thinking -- are there instances in which enabling technology or access to non-weapons technology is in the nation's strategic interest? And how is the rise of global ICT capabilities affecting that? Because so much of the technology and physical infrastructure is in the private sector, how does one address that? (If one thinks government should never have any or even the smallest input into the private sphere, then it's a moot question.)

Of course, we give and/or sell billions in military equipment and weapons to allies. (And to be explicit, from a realist perspective that's not something with which I have particular heartburn.)

The use of Twitter by Iranian protesters isn't a dire national security case ... but it hints at what might be.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[justinb138 0]

Quote

Very interesting situation. IMHO, a request is OK, but arm twisting is not. Sounds like it was a request.

If it wasn't a request how would you tell the difference?

[1969912 0]

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Quote

Very interesting situation. IMHO, a request is OK, but arm twisting is not. Sounds like it was a request.

If it wasn't a request how would you tell the difference?

Good point. We might never know.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[1969912 0]

Quote

Quote

Very interesting situation. IMHO, a request is OK, but arm twisting is not.

Concur.

In this case, everything indicates that the State Department asked very nicely without any implicit or explicit demands and that the company, based on whatever motives, agreed. From a PR and western marketing perspective, the association of Twitter with the Iranian protests has been golden.

The US government has limited or shut down access to technology at times, e.g., ITAR restrictions. We've asked other nations to limit access as well, e.g., the PSI. We limit terrorist and Iranian regime access to financial resources as consequences for activities.

The flip side -- in what I acknowledge is a more speculative & ponderous line of thinking -- are there instances in which enabling technology or access to non-weapons technology is in the nation's strategic interest? And how is the rise of global ICT capabilities affecting that? Because so much of the technology and physical infrastructure is in the private sector, how does one address that? (If one thinks government should never have any or even the smallest input into the private sphere, then it's a moot question.)

Of course, we give and/or sell billions in military equipment and weapons to allies. (And to be explicit, from a realist perspective that's not something with which I have particular heartburn.)

The use of Twitter by Iranian protesters isn't a dire national security case ... but it hints at what might be.

/Marg

Dunno.

IGBT's have appear to be less than ideal for high bias Class A/B audio amplifiers, but seem to be superior to MOSFETs in EV PWM controllers.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[nerdgirl 0]

Quote

IGBT's have appear to be less than ideal for high bias Class A/B audio amplifiers, but seem to be superior to MOSFETs in EV PWM controllers.

Depending on the configuration and capability, iirc both IGBT and MOSFET semiconductors can be subject to ITAR restrictions.

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[kelpdiver 2]

It was months before we started hearing from banking execs about being asked 'forcefully' to acquire other failing banks. So we'd likely never know.

But it does make business sense for twitter to deny ADD types in the US an hour of prime time in exchange for ADD would be revolutionaries there.

Meanwhile, the more literate use facebook or any other service which allows for writing entire paragraphs.

[1969912 0]

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IGBT's have appear to be less than ideal for high bias Class A/B audio amplifiers, but seem to be superior to MOSFETs in EV PWM controllers.

Depending on the configuration and capability, iirc both IGBT and MOSFET semiconductors can be subject to ITAR restrictions.

/Marg

Probably not, but:

PSI: Precision, Specificity, Intelligibility? 2 out of 3

ICT: I (me) Can't Translate (w/o googling)?

ITAR: I (me) Tried And Resorted (to googling)? Knew that one from work though.


Just playing

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[nerdgirl 0]

PSI = Proliferation Security Initiative (State Dept program, initated during President GW Bush's admin, to interdict suspected proliferation of technology, mostly on the sea & mostly WMD-related.)

ICT = information and communications technology

ITAR = International Traffic in Arms Regulations

/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[billvon 3,107]

>If it wasn't a request how would you tell the difference?

If it wasn't a request, it's more likely we wouldn't have heard about it. "Delay your upgrade and tell no one."

[1969912 0]

Quote

PSI = Proliferation Security Initiative (State Dept program, initated during President GW Bush's admin, to interdict suspected proliferation of technology, mostly on the sea & mostly WMD-related.)

ICT = information and communications technology

ITAR = International Traffic in Arms Regulations

/Marg

Thanks. Next time I'll try to be helpful to the readers and say:

"IGBT's (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors) have (sic) appear to be less than ideal for high bias Class A/B audio amplifiers, but seem to be superior to MOSFETs (Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors) in EV (Electric Vehicle) PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) (motor) controllers."

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[billvon 3,107]

"IGBT's (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors) have (sic) appear to be less than ideal for high bias Class A/B audio amplifiers, but seem to be superior to MOSFETs (Metal Oxide Field Effect Transistors) in EV (Electric Vehicle) PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) (motor) controllers."

MOSFETs rule below 200 volts.

[1969912 0]

Quote

"IGBT's (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors) have (sic) appear to be less than ideal for high bias Class A/B audio amplifiers, but seem to be superior to MOSFETs (Metal Oxide Field Effect Transistors) in EV (Electric Vehicle) PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) (motor) controllers."

MOSFETs rule below 200 volts.

Fair enough (for this discussion). But the point of my (crappy) analogy was: Instead of just tossing out acronyms, at least expand them in parentheses so that some level of understanding of a post might be attained without doing an acronym search.

"Once we got to the point where twenty/something's needed a place on the corner that changed the oil in their cars we were doomed . . ."
-NickDG

[justinb138 0]

Quote

>If it wasn't a request how would you tell the difference?

If it wasn't a request, it's more likely we wouldn't have heard about it. "Delay your upgrade and tell no one."

Now that I think about it, I see no reason why they wouldn't just come out and say it if they did force them to, as this administration doesn't seem to have any desire to hide the fact that they're trying to get a hand in everyone's business.

[ErricoMalatesta 0]

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Lame. Twitter is a private business. The State department (and the rest of the government) should mind it's own business and let Twitter mind itself.

Yeah because that's how the rest of business works in the US.

[Andy9o8 2]

So they delayed their upgrade by about 12 hours. Oh, the horror.

[Icon134 0]

Quote

Quote

"IGBT's (Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors) have (sic) appear to be less than ideal for high bias Class A/B audio amplifiers, but seem to be superior to MOSFETs (Metal Oxide Field Effect Transistors) in EV (Electric Vehicle) PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) (motor) controllers."

MOSFETs rule below 200 volts.

Fair enough (for this discussion). But the point of my (crappy) analogy was: Instead of just tossing out acronyms, at least expand them in parentheses so that some level of understanding of a post might be attained without doing an acronym search.

the sad thing is that I sort of understood what both of you were talking about...

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...