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Obama Says He Never Tweeted, But Twitter Should Not Be Restricted

by Yuliya Talmazan | November 16, 2009 at 05:17 pm

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During his visit to China yesterday, U.S. President Barack Obama mentioned that he never used the microblogging service Twitter.com, but implicitly stated that anyone who wants to Tweet should have a right to. Chinese government is notorious for restricting access to social networking and microblogging websites like Facebook and Twitter. Obama said "[he is] too clumsy to type on the phone to Tweet. Of course, given Obama's busy schedule, the U.S. President can only Tweet from his phone.

But, when asked about the limited freedom to use Twitter in China, Obama did say that it is important for information to "flow freely," so that the government is forced to hear opinions that it does not want to hear.

In this story, two things boggle my mind.

First of all, the fact that a Chinese student had the guts to ask Obama a question like that. I wonder what will become of him now that he posed that question to the leader of the United States on visit to his home country.

Secondly, the fact that Obama admitted to have never Tweeted in his life means all the Twitter accounts that claim to be official Obama feeds are not overseen by Obama, although some of them are written in first person as if from the President himself -- among them http://twitter.com/BarackObama, http://twitter.com/ObamaLOLz, and http://twitter.com/barak_obama.

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Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke

at 18:30 on November 16th, 2009

The question to the President about twitter had a foreseeable response. The students were selected by the authorities and I really don.t think that this question was a surprise to them.

Regarding Obama's twitter account, well that too was predictable, I think the Presidient has more things on his plate than to answer twitter messages.

Babel-Fish

at 20:41 on November 16th, 2009

Babel fish sips coffee and states coolly "even my twitter account is not mine", lol

CBuckwalter

at 01:52 on November 17th, 2009

I thought it was an interesting question not only because of the heavy internet restrictions that are currently present in China but also with the discussions the US government is currently having about net-neutrality. My initial thoughts on the President's answer were that he was trying to subtly convey his concerns toward the restrictions that internet providers in the US put on the internet.