Twitter Postpones Maintenance As Use In Iranian Protests Soars
The protests by hundreds of thousands of Iranians over what they claim is voter fraud that resulted in the landslide re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president of the country has been fueled in large part via Twitter which, according to Reuters, has become the only reliable news channel in the country.
Biz Stone, co-founder and creative director of Twitter, wrote in a blog post on Monday that Twitter and its hosting partner, NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services, had originally scheduled a critical network upgrade necessary to the continued operation of Twitter for Monday night.
However, wrote Stone, that maintenance was rescheduled for between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., PST, Tuesday, which is Wednesday morning, about 1:30 a.m., in Iran.
"Our partners are taking a huge risk not just for Twitter but also the other services they support worldwide -- we commend them for being flexible in what is essentially an inflexible situation," Stone wrote in his blog post. "We chose NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services early last year specifically because of their impeccable history of reliability and global perspective. Today's decision and actions continue to prove why NTT America is such a powerful partner for Twitter."
New York-based NTT America, a subdivision of Japan-based Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., became the hosting center for Twitter in February of 2008.
Stone's blog on the rescheduling can be read by clicking here.