Twitter apparently makes it too easy to find out your country sucks. Following the fates of Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, BoingBoing and presumably others, Twitter is no longer accessible in the United Arab Emirates.
A lot of moral corruption can be accomplished in 140 characters or less, it would seem. Or maybe it’s just too easy to talk to freedom-loving infidels that might pass on a mind-expanding link.
Whatever the reasoning, as captured at Joi.Ito.com, Twitter is persona-non-grata…er, networka-non-grata. An attempt to access the social network is met with this notice:
“We apologize, the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.”
But that’s no reason for the folks at Twitter to despair. As Mashable’s Mark Hopkins points out, being banned in an intolerant country just means you’ve officially arrived:
“You know you’ve really made it as an online entity when an entire country bans your site. In terms of a rite of passage, it’s just after the wide-spread adoption and critical mass stages (which of course is followed by random companies banning you, and mainstream newspapers writing about studies on how inefficient the economy has become since your company’s existence).”
And let’s not forget proposed legislation and school board fights. Congratulations, Twitter!
