photo: thenextweb/ BY-NC-SA

Can you imagine our government shutting down Twitter, MySpace, or Facebook? All hell would break loose.

China shut down Twitter preventing people from sharing information and exchanging messages. The tactic comes just days before the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, a series of demonstrations in Beijing in 1989 that culminated in the Tiananmen Square massacre.

China is not the only country suspiciously shutting down social networking sites; Iran recently unblocked Facebook after it was unavailable to users. Even though it’s not confirmed, there's been speculation that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was behind the ban after his opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, used the social networking site to rally supporters for next month’s presidential election.

Living in a place where freedom of speech is part of the Constitution, I was blown away by how strict and how determined China is to hush people and the extent to which Iran's current government may be trying to avoid their opponents having a similar Barack Obama force of supporters.

I’m used to being able to express myself and not worrying if it’s not pleasant. I just can’t imagine being banned or censored for speaking my mind.

How would you react if Twitter, MySpace, or Facebook was censored by our government?