Governments that fear freedom certainly can’t find any reason to like a free and unfettered Internet. They abhor how it empowers people. They cringe at how it emboldens long-enslaved citizens to demand and fight for their rights and freedom.

These governments lose sleep over the prospect of having their shenanigans and abuses exposed and left out in the open for all the world to see via the online world.

These governments, most of them (if not all of them) unelected and lacking in mandate, fear the Internet for its ability to make people see that true power comes from them and that they alone should decide who should rule over them.

It is no surprise then that these governments would do everything to gain control of the Internet. They have been trying to emasculate the online world’s liberating capabilities by setting up censoring, monitoring, and screening measures all designed to keep their subjects from having access to the Internet’s full and free version.

These governments recently made their most brazen attack at online freedom during the International Telecoms Union’s conference in Dubai. Seeking to add legitimacy to their efforts to curtail online freedom, these governments sought to add into a proposed global telecom treaty measures that would have allowed these governments to “have control over the Internet and monitor everything from its architecture to traffic flow to security.”

Fortunately, governments from democratically elected countries opposed the treaty, saving and ensuring online freedom for a little while longer.

The incident, however, aside from leaving too much bad taste, illustrates how badly we need to be vigilant in protecting online freedom from those who fear the Internet and its empowering and liberating effects on most people it touches.

The Pope Tweets

A couple of weeks ago, Pope Benedict XVI joined Twitter, sending out his first few messages to the whole of Twitterdom.

Posting messages in eight languages under the handle @pontifex, the pope’s followers promptly increased to over a million. The pope also began answering questions posted via the hashtag #askpontifex.

Also, as expected, the usual haters and anti-Catholic has had a field day bashing the pope and the church he represents. Most Twitter users following the pope, however, have welcomed the pope into the Twitter universe.

Twitter-Instagram Catfight

Well, this sort of explains the un-friending process currently going on between Twitter and Instagram (and consequently, Facebook).

A recent story from the New York Times, citing anonymous sources, reported Twitter tried buying Instagram before Facebook pocketed the online photo-sharing site.

But what makes everything quite unpalatable for Twitter, apparently, was Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom’s decision to call off the verbal deal he had with the microblogging site.

This somehow reminds us of the story about that jilted groom who sued his erstwhile bride-to-be after she failed to appear in church at the day and time their wedding invitations said she needed to be.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.