Twitter To Censor Content in Select Countries
Author: John Duckgeischel on January 26, 2012 - 8:03 PM
On Thursday Twitter announced
plans to begin putting restrictions on Tweets in certain countries. Previously if the company removed a Tweet, it
had to be removed on a global basis unlike today where it can block a tweet in
one country and allow it to be seen elsewhere. The company mentioned “pro-Nazi content” in
Germany and France as an example of restrictions it may conform with. "As we continue to grow internationally,
we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom
of expression," Twitter wrote in a statement. "Starting today, we give ourselves the
ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while
keeping it available in the rest of the world," the company blogged.
The move toward selected
censorship is a big change from the company’s position a year ago when
protestors in Egypt, Tunisia and other Arab countries relied upon social media
companies such as Twitter to get their message out. "We do not remove Tweets on the basis of
their content," Twitter wrote in a blog, and then added, "Our
position on freedom of expression carries with it a mandate to protect our
users' right to speak freely and preserve their ability to contest having their
private information revealed." Tensions have often been strained between
social media companies such as Google and Facebook and certain foreign
governments. The pressure in China in
2010 grew to the point that Google moved its Web search engine to Hong Kong as
both sides publically expressed their displeasure in a spat with each
other. Since then Google has been
attacked by hackers, which the company has been able to trace back to China.
Related Link:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/us-twitter-idUSTRE80P28920120127
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