Twitter treads thin line on censorship
Twitter has announced a new policy that allows it to remove tweets from viewers in one country only. It’s defended itself against claims of censorship by saying the move is a practical way of maintaining free speech.
The new policy hadn’t previously been possible, but Twitter has now made technical changes that allow it to block access to specific posts by users in a specific country. (Cynics will be wondering if this also means it will be able to provide specific “sponsored” tweets to users in a specific country.)
According to Twitter, it’s previously only been able to delete tweets on and all-or-nothing basis, though it doesn’t say if it’s ever done this. (If it has, the new system would be an improvement in free speech terms.)
It says the new policy is needed as it continues to expand into new countries, many of which have more restrictions on freedom of expression. It also notes that this isn’t always a case of oppression of current political opponents, but also includes some very specific legal restrictions such as Germany’s ban on pro-Nazi content.
Twitter says it hasn’t yet used the single country blocking, that if it does so, it will tell the user wherever possible, and will display a message to affected viewers noting that content has been withheld. It will also be teaming up with the Chilling Effects website to publishing all the legal demands it receives.
According to Twitter it will only delete messages when it is “required” to do so, though it hasn’t said if this means simply following initial demands, or fighting every claim and only deleting material if and when it loses any relevant court cases, depending on the legal system in the country concerned.
There’s also no mention of how the site will deal with retweets of contentious posts. It would seem the only way to tackle that would be to search and replace for the relevant text, though that could just encourage retweeters to change a single letter or add a random symbol in the middle of the message.
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