Twitter Uses NSA PR Playbook

At first glance there's no similarity between the oh-so-hip-microblogging service Twitter and the staid and secretive National Security Agency.

But when it comes to providing details on new data centers -- sensitive information for both outfits -- NSA and Twitter both seem to believe the best publicity is almost no publicity.

NSA let the Army Corps of Engineers put out the news of the contract for its new $1.2 billion data center in Salt Lake City, while Twitter has been positively mum on its Salt Lake City data center plans since a blog post in June by a Twitter engineer.

In an article that sounds eerily familiar to anyone who has tried to pry information out of NSA, the Salty Lake City Tribune reported Twitter "clamped a lid" on providing any more details about its data center plans.

In yet another take on the NSA PR playbook, the Twitter clampdown extended to its contractor, C7 data centers, which the Tribune said had been asked by Twitter not to disclose any information.

Maybe Twitter is trying to play up its secrecy so it can sublease some capacity from the NSA.