The obsession to keep a check on what people are doing is immense in the US government and for this reason the CIA monitors around 5 million tweets every day. The social media is a very strong platform where users not only interact with each other for social reasons, but also discuss various on-going issues from around the globe. Although, not everything that everyone says is of any significance to the governments, but some of this stuff does hold their interest.
For this reason, not only the American government, but most governments around the world have started monitoring the social networks to know what the people have been talking about. This will not only allow them to have an assessment of what people think, but also more importantly what they know and how much they know. It is these latter questions that also keep the tug-of-war between the governments and the press going on for the right to know and for the freedom of information and freedom of expression.
Though most European countries, including America, think theirs are the democracies and others should follow the examples of, but when it comes to social media and free flow of information on the net, they also seem to take a step back and hesitate. The CIA translates each and every tweet in whatever language it may be. According to the CIA, a lot of the negative tweets have been in Urdu language, obviously coming from Pakistan, and in Chinese language, which is a close ally of Pakistan.
