Censorship on the House Floor: Why Rep. John Culberson Is Banned From Using Twitter

Having fixed the economy and stopped the war, Congress is now turning its attention to censoring itself on Twitter and other social media websites. Yet another item to add to the "Aren't There More Pressing Matters to Deal With?" File.

For several months, I've followed the inside viewpoint of Texas Congressman John Culberson (R) via Twitter as he offered a unique insight into the world of Washington politics. Using a variety of social media outlets, but most notably through Twitter and the occasional live video stream via Qik, he has opened the doors to the House of Representatives in a very new and authentic way, at times even streaming live from the House floor, answering questions from constituents, and explaining the process like a modern-day Jefferson Smith.

Yesterday on Capitol Hill, Massachusetts Representative Michael Capuano (D), who is Chairman of the "Congressional Commission on Mailing Standards" introduced a letter to attempt to shut down the use of any third party social media outlets by Congressmen without first gaining Committee approval each time. His claim is that any usage that is outside of the House.gov domain needs to belong to an official "channel" within that site and thus, make it a unified "official" voice from the House each time video is posted.

Rep. Capuano states, "I believe that these conditions will help ensure that the House presence on such external sites conforms with acceptable standards that reflect favorably on the dignity, propriety, and decorum of the House."

That means, before every time Rep. Culberson could answer a question or voice an opinion, he would be forced to take it to a House Sub-Committee to make sure it was the acceptable response.

This is exactly the sort of governmental control that is blatantly disastrous to a legitimate democracy, and should be seen as a complete act of censorship, regardless of your political affinity (if anyone has one anymore). If there is ANYWHERE in the world that we, as American citizens, have the right to see inside the doors and gather the information we choose to make our own decisions, it is inside of OUR House and Senate.

As our government reconsiders the accessibility of our representatives, please visit Let Our Congress Tweet or follow the updates on Twitter.

A Qik interview with Rep. Culberson. Qik utilizes mobile phone cameras, so the quality isn't exactly HD.

Twitter as a Life-Saver?

Along with thousands of others, I have recently been playing around with the "microblogging" site, Twitter. The premise is simple--answer the question "What are you doing?" using 140 characters or less and allow those who are interested to follow along with what you have to say. It's sort of like sending out text messages to anyone who cares enough to read it. The thing is, most of us are constantly doing something different, so the answer changes a lot.

Twitter also allows you to follow along as friends, celebrities, experts, and even the Mars rover, continually answer the question, as well. You may choose to follow just a select few, or thousands, it all depends who you think has something interesting to say, and you can choose to receive these updates online or even to your phone.

The obvious first question is, "why would anyone do that?" or "isn't that just more inane chatter to muck up your already overly complicated life?". Both are beyond fair questions and ones that I posed before playing around a little bit so that I might be able to answer them for folks. Personally, I've been using Twitter mostly like its an RSS reader that allows me to listen in to the up-to-the-instant insight from other experts in my field. I've also used it for quick research (by firing out a question to get some quick feedback from those who are following my posts) and to keep MediaSauce colleagues updated about what I'm working on without having to talk to a handful of people individually. As is the case with most Internet phenomenon, there isn't really a clear cut point to Twitter, just different uses for different folks.

Thinking beyond the techie geek side of things, there is also potential for the service to help with news delivery and personal safety. Recently, an American student in Egypt was unjustly arrested, but was able to send out a "tweet" before being put in a cell. The simple text message "Arrested." motivated his followers to begin calling the embassy and helping clear up the situation. He was free in less than 24 hours. Being connected can be a very good thing.

I'm yet to see too many great applications for business, but JetBlue, Comcast and others are already using Twitter for customer service, and at MediaSauce, we use it to send out quick internal announcements. I can also envision it as a great tool to seek out and motivate volunteers or canvassers come election time.

Anyway, you'll be hearing plenty more about Twitter, especially if someone really figures out what they're supposed to be doing with it! Feel free to sign up and follow my every move (at least until I get bored with it).