no reason that organizations or individuals who want to use the Web to relay critical information have to rely on Twitter or Facebook or Google or any other giant of the technology industry in the first place . We 've just forgotten a bit about how the Internet was supposed to work . Rescue organizations and charities should simply be able to use the Web sites they already have to deliver those messages . And was n't that the promise of the Web in the first place ? Were n't we going to stop relying on individual companies as gatekeepers for communication ? When blogs took off a few years ago , was n't it with the promise that we 'd all be able to share our voices without having to ask any company for permission ? Why did we give that up ? Maybe it 's because they made it look so easy . Twitter has done an impressive job of growing to handle its enormous number of users , while keeping its service simple . The company has even shown a reassuring sensitivity to the civic and social obligations that come from running such a popular communication service
New York -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Decades ago , when the Department of Defense was creating the predecessor to today 's Internet , one of the main goals was to create a communications system that could endure catastrophic disasters . The Internet was designed to have no central point of failure , allowing anyone to run his or her own communications channel . This was a system that could withstand a nuclear attack . Today , the services built on top of that network have done a great job in enabling communications , perhaps none more dramatically than Twitter . During the days since the Haiti earthquake , the popular social networking and microblogging service has been used for rescue efforts and for fundraising to help stabilize and rebuild the country . So it was big news when Twitter was offline for 90 minutes Wednesday morning . Technology pundits promptly began hand-wringing -- the weaknesses of having a single point of failure to critical communications had been revealed again ! Could we trust Twitter ? Did this mean the Web could n't help us fulfill our most basic obligations to those in need ? Not at all . There 's