Twitter and Google recently joined forces to help Egypt talk to the world. The Egyptian authorities last week decided to block most internet and SMS traffic, but the two companies combined efforts and came up with a way around the blockade.

Their system is called ‘Speak2tweet’ (link http://twitter.com/speak2tweet#) and is quite simple. Anybody in Egypt that has access to either a landline or mobile phone can call an international number that connects them to a voice-mail service. Here they can leave a short message. This audio message gets transferred to Twitter and labelled with #egypt. From then on, the world can listen in.

Why?
So why are these two businesses helping Egyptians who are being stopped from speaking to the world? “For Twitter, the answer is simple”, says Web Wereld journalist Andreas Udo de Haes. “Twitter is all about freedom of speech. That is its core business. Unlike Google, Twitter does not have offices all around the world. It doesn’t need to comply with regulations of national governments. This is the opposite for Google. They do need to answer to local laws.”

The numbers to call from Egypt:

+16504194196,
+390662207294
+97316199855