The Power of Internet Censorship, in 1 Chart

There are many lessons to be learned from the NBC-Twitter-Guy Adams affair. But here is one of them: The suspension of Adams' account, ultimately, wasn't much of a suspension. It amplified Adams' message rather than minimizing it.

So whether, in suspending Adams' account, Twitter was trying to silence a critic of (its media partner) NBC or ... something else, the noisy growth of the "silenced" @guyadams is a nice reminder: In a networked world -- in a world that empowers users not only as subjects, but also as objects of discussion -- true suspension is much harder to achieve than it used to be. Each user carries with him or her a community of other people -- people who are not just fellow users, but also latent speakers of speech. Those people will make noise.