There’s also a question for Twitter that’s still pending: Will it enter countries where it will likely be forced to censor? It can stay out—not building offices, not selling advertising—and then just let users post whatever they want. Or it can go in and have to obey the onerous requests. Tim Wu, a law professor at Columbia, told me, ‘In those countries, Twitter has no particular reason or legal duty to follow the laws of that nation, and I don’t think Twitter should agree to be bound by their censorship laws, even for their citizens. Obviously, it has the right to, but I don’t agree it’s good policy.’ If Twitter has no corporate presence in Syria, it can let users go to Twitter.com and post whatever they want. If a censorship request comes in, Twitter can ignore it. (If the government threatens to shut off all access to the site, then, perhaps, Twitter can choose to censor.)