Westminster Abbey Blocks Twitter At Royal Wedding

Guests of the royal wedding on 29 April will be prevented from posting live Tweets, after event organisers arranged for signal-blocking technology to be installed at Westminster Abbey.

The move, which was initiated by senior members of the royal family, is intended to cut down the number of news photos and videos featuring mobile phone-toting guests, and also prevent any distracting ringtones from interrupting the ceremony. Those attending the wedding will also be unable to share pictures, send texts or make calls.

The news has reportedly been welcomed by police, security personnel, and broadcasters, who are keen to avoid any disruptions to the event. Mobile phones can also, of course, be used to set of bombs, meaning that mobile phone jamming will act as an additional security measure.

A police official confirmed to Yahoo on Wednesday that the blocking technology will be in place from early Friday morning and will remain switched on for the duration of the ceremony.

Twittersphere buzzing

The absence of Twitter at the actual event does not mean the web will go silent, however. The wedding will be streamed live on YouTube’s official Royal Channel, and will run for four hours beginning at 10am BST.

Meanwhile, AP Live, CBS News, TheInsider.com and the UK Press Association will all have live coverage and commentary of the event, and the BBC, ABC News, Fox News and ITN are all hosting live streams, ensuring that the social media channels will be buzzing.

Talk of the Royal Wedding is already accelerating rapidly on Facebook and Twitter. Overall, tweets about the Royal Wedding have quadrupled since the beginning of the month, averaging nearly 5,000 per hour over the last week and accelerating quickly in recent days. According to data from social media business intelligence platform Trendrr, 46 percent of tweets are positive, 43 percent are neutral and 12 percent are negative.