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Twitter breaks Chinese earthquake news

Globe and Mail Blog Post

Latest comment posted at 10:54 AM EDT 13/05/08

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  1. C Dione from Canada writes: This technology will do an end run around the communist scensors......until they block it for their citizens!!
  2. Craig Cooper from Toronto, writes: I'd rather have accuracy than instantaneous "news."
  3. Gopal Bhattacharyya from Toronto, ON, Canada writes: We are seeing another disaster this time in China. We are right in blaming Burma for not acceping foreign relief workers and aid. But what do we do about helping China after the earthquake. China is not going to allow foreign relief workers moving around in the region without Chinese supervision. I would like to see how we deal with it. You can't push China around. This world has one set of rules for the weak and an another set of rules for the strong.
  4. Mary Coyote from what would make the oceans rise 300 feet?, Canada writes: The above comments are silly: “communist scensors“ are leftists with feelings? Accuracy? I thought there was no such thing as Objective Truths.
    http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

    I don't use Twitter and am happy that you turned me on to it, even as the Globe and Mail turned on many readers to the Huffington Post news/blog years ago. Although the Huff is a technical and 'scensored' disaster after three years of trying to get it right, It is the model for New Media.

    Old media such as the Globe really need to take a good hard look at this and make the adjustments necessary to remain relevant. Adding comments that are hidden away and need an extra click to discover is NOT THE WAY.

    I love the Globe and Mail, but I love New Media even more. I really hope the Globe upgrades some more.
  5. W L from Canada writes: It would be foolishly naive to think Twitter can get around commie censors. For all we know, they made Twitter popular. Governments needing useful crowd control devices would be the first to create and administer such service. After it's been out there for a few month and earned users' trust, government agents can use Twitter to spread rumors and create mass confusion with such service.

    If you haven't heard about student demonstrations at Tiananmen square in 1989 and how the government "dispersed" the crowd, now is the time to read up. Basically, government agents posing as protesting students mixed in with the crowd and spread false rumors. This lead to mass confusion and the eventual arrest of many student leaders.

    Now, with Twitter, government don't even need to send agents out. A few quick messages will do.

    Of course, this type of infiltration is still primitive compared to the West, where much more sophisticated operations called "media" is used to feed misinformation to the public.
  6. Benjamin Sirrah from Victoria, Canada writes: This type of news "straight form the horses mouth" is usually proven to be the most reliable and accurate. I would be more inclined to believe the first account from someone on the scene than a well researched, produced and edited news story on a respected news authority.
  7. Alastair james Berry from Nanaimo BC CANADA, Canada writes: Aid agencies could move around the world much more quickly if the USA would get it's CLANDESTINE CIA OPERATIVES out of the volunteers in NGO's. Governments are getting a bit nervous about letting AID AGENCIES have a free hand, particularly after the experiences of Pakistan with the severe earthquake in the N.W. Mountainous area when drones appeared and started firing hell fire rockets specifically at village leaders homes. Responding to disasters quickly and planting operatives and informants in countries, has become something of an art, it seems, in the USA. I have spoken to a chap who was involved some time back with Habitat for Humanity and he came across a volunteer who JUST DID NOT SEEM RIGHT! The CIA have since broadened their recruiting(even advertising in the' ECONOMIST ' for applicants for 'clandestine operations' quite new for an agency that used to be staffed with ex military 30-40 yr olds married with children, who had kept their noses clean during their service. Another characteristic of these operatives is they always pay with cash(ans seem to have a lot of it) as the the FBI and CIA do not like to leave a paper trail
  8. Erik Schomann from Kunming, China, Canada writes: We felt the quake rather severely here in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province immediately south of Sichuan where the epicentre was reported to have been. We felt it strong enough to think the epicentre was an adjacent county. I'm curious as to how twitter would have been able to locate the epicentre without seizmographic instruments. Or did they simply report that there was an earthquake in SW China and no further details. As for the discussion regarding twitters ability to get around the Chinese censors, it would have to be made available in Chinese first as it is only available, currently, in English and Japanese. Secondly, I live here and none of my Chinese friends and colleagues have ever even heard of twitter. If twitter broke the story, it was likely an expat and not a Chinese person who reported it. Finally, is there really a conflict between twitter type media and more commercially main stream ones like the Globe? I don't think so. That debate, to me is like suggesting people would stop talking because they invented writing (or perhaps the other way around), or that people will stop reading the Star or the Sun because the Globe exists. Twitter and publications like the Globe exist to fill different needs and while they may have commonalities on the surface, they are quite different in the immediate spheres of the products and services provided by each.
  9. della baird from vancouver, Canada writes: dee vancouver: alastair james berry...... i am glad that you have such faith in the former 'habits' of the cia. do not be fooled.these creeps have been around for a long time. i suppose you realise that every posters' words are scrutinized by same. i am not being fascetious(excuse spelling) but found this out from an american site, i cannot remember which one or i would post it. kind of 'creepy ,would'nt you say? so much for freedom!
  10. matt lynch from newcastle, Australia writes: as i said b4

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