How Twitter Makes the Internet More Local

Social Media Isn't As Global As One Might Think

A mass of Twitter followers. (Brajeshwar / flickr)

Last year marked the 15th anniversary of "Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace," a manifesto by the poet and political activist John Perry Barlow that presented a vision of cyberspace as being "both everywhere and nowhere," outside the control of the governments of "the industrial world." Today, many consider online social media as having ushered in the "global village" prophesied by the media theorist Marshall McLuhan, connecting everyone and anyone and giving them the power to promulgate social movements and engender democracy.

It only took a few years for China to contradict Barlow by developing its so-called Great Firewall, which has proved quite capable of blocking undesirable foreign Web sites and plenty of domestic ones, too, as it did earlier this week, when Beijing strangled the hugely popular microblogging sites Weibo.com and t.qq.com. But controlling the Internet is hardly a Chinese phenomenon. Other governments have quelled online activity during moments of unrest, most notably, Egypt at the beginning of the revolution there last year. As recent history shows, the world's governments, Barlow's "weary giants of flesh and steel," can still impose borders online...

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