So Twitter didn't bow to the U.S. State Department?

Yesterday, James Downie wrote about the U.S. State Department's request to Twitter that a scheduled maintenance period be postponed — so that news could continue to stream out of Iran. Twitter apparently complied, delaying the outage until 5 p.m. EST yesterday.

But, says Twitter CEO Biz Stone, the State Department in fact had very little to do with Twitter's decision to push off its server downtime:

'When we worked with our network provider to reschedule this planned maintenance, we did so because events in Iran were tied directly to the growing significance of Twitter as an important communication and information network.

'We decided together to move the date. It made sense for Twitter and for NTT America to keep services active during this highly visible global event.'

This explanation seems to dovetail with current circumstances on multiple levels. For one, it makes good business sense — the defiant use of the social networking tool in Iran makes for good publicity. And for another, it shores up U.S President Barack Obama's statements pledging non-intervention.