The Internet Turns Ugly

Yesterday, Twitter came under a DDoS attack, as did Facebook, LiveJournal, Google, and others.  The reason?  To silence a user with the handle of cyxymu, who has been blogging about the Georgia/Russia crisis.

Long ago, when the world wide web first started, many sites carried a logo and statement - “Free speech is a human right”.  As Americans, we frequently crow about our freedoms, we go to war to try to free others, and, sometimes, we take our freedoms for granted.  It may be time to start a grass roots campaign to bring to light that more than anything else, free speech really is a human right.

Nick seems to think that the Russian government is behind the DDoS attack.  That’s terrifying to me.  But beyond that, what is the most terrifying is that millions of people around the world were impacted because of some entity’s desire to silence one person.   Looking at the bright side, though - the next time you think you are too small or insignificant to have an impact on the world, come back and read this post and remember cyxymu, the man that brought social media to its knees simply by exercising his human right of free speech.