President Obama made a speech in China last night, calling on the country to embrace Internet freedom: a plea made all the more inconsequential by the fact that the speech was hardly broadcast to the Chinese population. According to The Wall Street Journal, it didn't air on national television, nor was it broadcast live on the Xinhua Website (the state-run news agency), as promised.
Reuters also reports that quotes from his speech that turned up on some Chinese Internet forums -- such as "I can tell you that in the United States, the fact that we have freedom of, or unrestricted Internet access, is a source of strength and I think should be encouraged" -- were promptly deleted. (China has also banned access to sites such as Twitter and Facebook since the summer months.)
Yet, this morning, the topic of choice among some tech bloggers was not the ironic way the Internet freedom speech was censored, and the unintended message that unrestricted access in China is but a pipedream for now. The focus, instead, was on an issue far more serious: President Obama's Twitter use.
Or. Well. His lack of Twitter use! GASP!
Responding to a student who asked the president, "Do you know about the great firewall and should we be able to use Twitter?" Obama replied, "I have never used Twitter but I'm an advocate of technology and not restricting Internet access."
Hold the proverbial phone. Did he just say, "I have never used Twitter"?
Bwahahahahahahahaha!
Sorry. I didn't mean to laugh before letting you in on the joke. It's just that other people thought he used Twitter! They thought that the 2.6 million people following Obama's account on that site were actually sometimes getting Tweets from... HIM!
This is interesting considering the Internet, and social media in particular, was considered a large part of his ascension to the Presidency... Still, it's somewhat surprising that he never sent any of his own tweets during the primaries. And undoubtedly part of us wants to believe that when you see tweets like 'This is history,' which was sent on November 7 - or 'Humbled' after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, that's it [sic] could the President [sic] really sending it. Nope.
"Nope" is right. And if there's any part of us that expects the president of the United States to be Tweeting, we should have that part surgically removed.
The reality is, Obama -- like every other bandwagon-jumping U.S. politician -- has had a couple of Twitter accounts. And these accounts are very obviously updated by someone on his staff... perhaps an intern or the family dog. Who knows? Who cares?
But there are people out there who believe Obama was granted the presidency based on how awesome he is at using social media. For these people, finding out Obama hasn't used Twitter ever due to, he says, his "clumsy thumbs," is like finding out once again that Mr. Mall Santa will not be delivering their gifts this Christmas. (Neither will Obama, by the way. Sorry.)
I, on the other hand, would like to come out and say "Thank Goodness." Thank you, Mr. President, for not taking even a millisecond out of your day to post an update on Twitter, and instead focusing on governing. You do plenty of talking, and it's comforting to know that you aren't using that controversial BlackBerry of yours to post Tweets. Ever.
You know, just so long as that's really you on Facebook...
Mary, I agree with you and Nicole. I do not want our President, given the fact that he seems to have an adequate supply of problems to address, to be still "campaigning" and socializing while in office.
I think this is why the country chose him as President and did not select Sarah Palin, who is still tweeting.
In all seriousness, it would be a misuse of the office, as well as pose all types of problems from security to the prestige of the office.
I am glad he uses good judgment in not giving into to the temptation to just gain popularity.
How people can criticize the president for not using Twitter is beyond me --as is saying the president has failed to back up his stated interest in social media by not tweeting.
Like Nicole, I'd be outraged if a president was using any social media directly -- with any regularity, that is. One of the privileges of the office is to have a million staffers so the honcho can focus on important work.
There's a lot of controversy over allowing many people at work to access Twitter. Why should the president be using it at work?
No, you're wrong about PUS vs. POTUS ;) -- the Secret Service types don't seem to have much of a sense of humor. Whereas, when I was President of the Uptime Institute, I allowed (but couldn't actually have stopped) my staff from referring to me as...POTUI. All I asked was that they say it, um, drily. That is, no actual spitting.
It used to be a tenet of conservative thinkers that capitalism led inexorably to political freedom (examples being S. Korea and Taiwan which both shed dictatorships as they rose as economic powers), but both China and Russia have pretty much discredited that idea.
I don't agree. China is still largely planned and managed from an authoritarian central regime, even the apparently capitalist side of its economy.
I'm not certain that the above perception is at all upheld, either. I just think that China's status as a centralized economy hardly qualifies as capitalism. But I also think we're seeing a lot of pressure on the government as a result of the few facets of capitalism that are making ther way into the culture there.
"China...erring on the side of caution" in regards to being slow to open up the Internet in the name of making sure they protect privacy...has to represent a whale's tongue in a chipmunk's cheek.
I'm glad one professor and I'm sure more than a few...hundred or thousand, in China, are studying Internet privacy, but I'm with Nicole on this -- the rather obvious other way to understand China's interest in Internet privacy is to protect the regime from possibly attractively subversive ideas.
It's clear that China has been changing, in the direction of capitalism, and therefore in the direction of increasing freedom for independent business, and hopefully, but so far only hopefully, in the direction of increased political freedom for individuals and parties that might disagree with the ruling group.
It used to be a tenet of conservative thinkers that capitalism led inexorably to political freedom (examples being S. Korea and Taiwan which both shed dictatorships as they rose as economic powers), but both China and Russia have pretty much discredited that idea.
Now, NOT dealing with China also does not push reform, and is in any case unrealistic to the point of childishness (ref. Cuba), but to pretend that they are not still trying to control the pace of political modernization by calling it "erring on the side of caution" goes a bit far...unless you were making a joke and I fell for it!
... a great post regarding the "lackatweet" on behalf of the POTUS.
I too am glad he doesn't spend any of his waking hours thumbing even the occasional Tweet or updating 'his' FB status and the one thing this points out is the issue of the anonymous or unverified status of accounts on Twitter and Facebook... I mean, Kanye MUST BE HIGHLY PI$$ED that someone opened accounts under President Obama's name!! I know he was when people opened them in his name, and he probably felt the same way when people opened them in Beyonce's name... after all, she had the best Twitter account ot the year...
Regarding the issues with China and open Internet access, I can tell you the Government of China is extremely concerned about privacy and developing policies for the proper management of information related to their citizens. At the ARMA International Conference in Orlando last month, I had a lengthy conversation with a Professor from the University of China in Renmin that is involved in the development of policy who is seeking assistance from the Western World.
I think they are erring on the side of caution before opening up the Internet in China, something that many of our citizens might have benefited from... but the last thing we'll ever admit! I quick review of this site will indicate we should have been willing to improve our privacy policies long ago- this only shows the number of breaches since 2005, and much of this is due to a lack of consistent policy and enforcement,
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