Twitter to Censor Tweets and Profiles Using New Tool
Late last week, Twitter announced plans to use a new tool to censor content in certain parts of the world, while keeping the same content visible in other countries.
This decision comes as a surprise to those who recall that exactly one year ago Twitter published a blog proclaiming their commitment to the freedom of expression.
Prior to last week’s announcement, Twitter only censored content by eliminating it from the site entirely. Some people like Mark Gibbs feel Twitter has committed the ultimate social sin by compromising with government leaders to censor certain content. Others speculate that this is merely a strategic move to ease their global expansion into less than democratic parts of the world.
In “The Tweets Must Flow”, Twitter had this to say,
“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression. Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.”
This is a very different tune from the one they were singing last year. They published a blog with the exact same title, except the message was very different.
“At Twitter, we have identified our own responsibilities and limits. There are Tweets that we do remove, such as illegal Tweets and spam. However, we make efforts to keep these exceptions narrow so they may serve to prove a broader and more important rule—we strive not to remove Tweets on the basis of their content.”
One thing is for sure, governments around the world are supportive. Take Thailand for instance, where censorship regulations are already in heavy rotation. The Thai government is the first government to publicly endorse Twitter's censorship rules.
U.S. Senator Joe Liberman has yet to give a public endorsement, but we presume he is especially pleased since he called for Twitter to block the Taliban and affiliated accounts late last year.
Even though Twitter has promised to notify users if and when content is withheld, some users are not comforted and are quite outraged.
On January 28, users planned a worldwide boycott of Twitter using the hashtag #TwitterBlackout. These protests come less than two weeks after Wikipedia and others blackedout their sites in protest of two controversial anti-piracy bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act.
We are honestly hestiant to jump to judgement here. This move toward censorship is not new to social media. It's a simple fact that if Twitter hopes to expand its global reach, it must play ball with governments to a certain degree. But how much is too much? Do you think Twitter will lose its 'street cred' with the younger generation by compromising with the government?
Soon after the news broke, Mashable posed this question and we're curious to know what you think. "Should Twitter make compromises with censoring governments for the sake of global expansion? Let us know if the comments if you think growing with restrictions is the right move for the microblog."
Let us know what you think.
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