Twitter has come. It was THE news in Iran when Ahmedjinad was winning his famous victory; breaking news in India after Shashi Tharoor started tweeting; and now it’s here as part of Milinda Moragoda’s unconventional campaign. Twitter, unlike spam SMS, is respectful of the personal space of the recipient. It is a how we should use new technologies. It completes the lesson in telecom privacy that the New Year began with.

On the first of January, I and millions of Sri Lankans received an unsolicited text message from a presidential candidate. I had not requested this message which contained both a New Year’s greeting and election propaganda. As I said in a response that I wrote en route to Sri Lanka from Dhaka where I received the spam text, “I do not recall giving my number . . .. I have definitely not given permission to my service provider to give my number . . .. But I have to spend time and effort to open the damn thing, read it and delete it. And since I was out of the country when the SMS reached me, I have to pay roaming charges for receiving spam SMS.”

In the heat of the campaign, partisans took up their positions, unmindful of the nuances of the debate. Some vociferously justified the act, of the candidate, the former Director General of Telecommunications who had unlawfully communicated the order to transmit the message to the mobile operators and the operators who had done the deed. “SMS wisdom,” an anonymously named commenter, even managed to call me an “old professor” and ask me “to grow up” in the very same comment.

I am no Luddite. I like to see new technologies being used in new ways. So I sketched out how political campaigns could use the ICTs to communicate with supporters or to solicit support. Political parties run ads on TV, radio and newspapers; send mass emails. Why not mass SMS or calls on mobile phones?

The difference was that people do not pay for the TV and radio content and only for parts of the cost of the newspapers they read. Part of the bargain with the people who provide the free content is that they can show advertising; the reader is free to look/listen.

A key difference with mobile phones (even more than with fixed phones, though the argument applies to both) is that it is the most personal of all communication technologies. It rings and I am compelled to answer. I have no alternative but to spend time looking at and then deleting spam, or refusing to accept campaign calls. Unauthorized use of my number eats up what I value the most: my time and attention. It intrudes on my personal space more rudely than a Godzilla cut out by the roadside.

There was, I said, a middle ground between everybody getting spammed by political candidates and absolute prohibition. Political campaigns could advertise numbers that interested members of the public can call/SMS to register their willingness to receive birthday calls/texts, New Year texts, happy Eid calls, happy Deepavali texts, etc. and yes, even political messages.

But I neglected to write about Twitter. Here, the one who wishes to communicate (the candidate) has to spend some resources to advertise how to receive the Tweets; those who wish to receive the messages have to proactively follow the Tweets; they retain the right and the ability to discontinue the communication. Communication happens, in nice tight 140 character chunks. Privacy is respected. Politicians are compelled to get to the point.

As Shashi Tharoor is showing in India, you can shake up the status quo using disruptive technologies. One hopes Milinda Moragoda will do the same in Sri Lanka. It sure is needed.