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I'm not a huge Twitter fan (watch for Ezra and I to debate the social networking tool in our next issue), and this story from the Egyptian blog Arabist might be why:
[I] am slightly skeptical about Web 2.0 social software technology. It’s true activists in Egypt and elsewhere have made good use of Twitter and Jaiku to update each other about demonstrations and such, but I can’t quite shake off the feeling that over time using these things too much reduces your brain to mush ... yesterday someone registered a State Security account on Twitter, and this morning I received this:Twitter isn't evil because Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian state uses it to monitor the public communications of opposition-leaning bloggers; they were probably reading the blogs already. But between that and John McCain's Twitter adventure, we all should be growing more concerned. Think of the children.Hi, arabist (arabist). Habib El-Adly (ElAdly) is now following your updates on Twitter. Check out Habib El-Adly’s profile here: http://twitter.com/ElAdlyHabib al-Adly, of course, is Egypt’s interior minister.
-- Tim Fernholz
