Twitter to censor tweets on a country-by-country basis

Published on Friday 27 January 2012 14:37

SOCIAL networking giant Twitter is to censor messages on a country-by-country basis after developing its technology.

The move has raised fears about the site’s commitment to free speech as it expands into new areas.

Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or “tweets,” remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.

Before, when Twitter erased a tweet it disappeared throughout the world.

Now, a message containing content breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed. That’s similar to what Internet search leader Google Inc. has been doing for years when a law in a country where its service operates requires a search result to be removed.

Like Google, Twitter also plans to the share the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the chillingeffects.org website.

“One of our core values as a company is to defend and respect each user’s voice,” Twitter wrote in a blog post. “We try to keep content up wherever and whenever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can’t. The tweets must continue to flow.”

Comments

There are 2 comments to this article

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 1

• 1
• Show all

2

KINGFISHER1

Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 09:46 PM

I do not use Twitter so I am unaffected. I have removed social networking sites from approved sources.FINAL.

• Report Unsuitable

1

Apache

Saturday, January 28, 2012 at 05:02 PM

"http:www.globalresearch.caindex.php?context=va&aid=28897" I think that in time there is overwhelming momentum by the national leadership cliques and by the big corporations to take away internet freedom of speech tremendously compared to the way it has been in the last 10-15 years.

• Report Unsuitable

Order by:

• Newest first
• |
• Oldest first

Page 1 of 1

• 1
• Show all

Logged in as:

Comment here. Start typing your comment here:

Post comment

Please adhere to our Community guidelines

Your view

Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.