Twitter Boss: We Won't Reveal Users to Governments

Dick Costolo, Twitter's chief executive, defended the actions of the micro-blogging service during the London riots this summer by ignoring politicians' calls for a restricted service.

"There as an analysis of all the tweets that went out in the aftermath of the London riots," Costolo said at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Tuesday. "As you would hope, the majority of the tweets were more about organising riot clean ups and tweeting to say, 'Hey I need to get to Kings Cross... Is it safe there, or are there looters out there?'

"When you have this conversation with government officials, we say you have to hope that the majority of the public communications are going to help matters and not foment violence."

Costolo also announced that Twitter will be trying its hardest to offer a service that differs from what you would expect from Facebook or Google+.

He also mentioned - or bragged - that the number of tweets per day has risen to more than 250 million, an increase of around 250 per cent since the beginning of 2011.

"We have lofty ambitions. We want to be part of the fabric over every communication in the world, and we think we can reach every person on the planet," Costolo said. "Twitter will introduce ads that resonate with what Twitter users are used to."