At Berkeley PR we’re keen on extolling the virtues of Twitter as a social networking tool with business benefits; a real time search engine; and a live news feed - all very useful stuff, but rather innocuous nonetheless.

But perhaps there is a more political potential of Twitter? Does the micro-blogging service have the ability to empower people with freedom of expression on a massive scale, rally public opinion and unsettle the ruling order? It appears to have rattled the Chinese government who,  in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, has cut off all access to Twitter, Hotmail and Flickr; preventing the public from engaging in political conversation which, undoubtedly, will lead to questioning and perhaps, the government surely fears, a return to unrest.

Those of us old enough to remember Tiananmen Square will find it difficult to forget the television image of the lone student standing in front of the tank, awaiting his fate. Imagine if that same event had played out over Twitter, with images uploaded instantly on Twitpic, blogs and Flickr accounts - the government then surely would have had no place to hide.

Twitter has particular resonance in China from a language point of view. English Tweeters are continually challenged to express themselves in 140 characters or less. A Chinese tweet, however, can have three times the volume of an English tweet thanks to the high “information intensity” of the Chinese language and can therefore contain all the elements of a full news piece.

No wonder the government is concerned, but how sad that 20 years after its shocking response to what should have been a lawful protest, it still feels the need to censor and silence its people.  Perhaps non-Chinese Tweeters can help fight the censors and show some solidarity across the globe this week by ensuring the Tiananmen Square massacre does not go un-tweeted, in spite of the best efforts of the government.

Emma Sinclair