Some Twitter users are calling out CEO Dick Costolo, for keeping his site up today while other major sites have shut down in protest against legislation threatening their existence.
But others say he made the right choice.
The dustup started when Costolo tweeted two days ago that Wikipedia’s plan to blackout its site was “foolish.” Since then, Costolo has been answering angry tweets from people questioning his call.
“Coward!. Please join the cause. Stop #SOPA. Jimmy Whales [sic] has more guts than you and the entire Twitter company,” tweeted Nick Santa. “Sorry for [saying] what i feel. But think that you have the power to change the world. …You are diplomatic. But drastic actions are needed when the government is evil, corporate and dictatorial.”
Costolo has responded to many of these tweets, arguing that keeping Twitter up and open for communication is more important in the fight against SOPA than the alternative. Not to mention, shutting down Twitter for one day would have cost the company about $380,000 in revenue, reported TheNextWeb.
And actually, it ooks like most tweeters agree with Costolo, using the worldwide trending hashtag #IfTheyShutDownTwitter to express how horrible it would be if the micro-blogging platform went dark—even if it were just for a day. Over the last four hours, the hashtag has been mentioned about 60,000 times, according to statistics from Topsy.
“#IfTheyShutDownTwitter i don’t even wanna think about it,” tweeted @SwEetAnGeL167. “i can’t live without twitter!”
Photo by Jolieodell