Twitter's New Censorship Tool Singles Out Topics by Country

2011 was the year Twitter got credit for helping bring the fight for freedom to the streets of the Arab world and beyond. Will 2012 be the year the little birdie becomes a symbol for censorship?

Twitter announced this week it had added the new ability for the company to censor certain types of tweets on a by-country basis. For instance, Germany and France ban pro-Nazi propaganda, and now instead of banning something worldwide, the company can curtail censorship to the needs of particular countries. Is that a good thing?

It's good for the 100-million user company because it aids its expansion. In a blog post [[link]] company reps said it will also attempt to let users know if a tweet or a topic is censored. Of course, whether that helps the social media giant fight the expansion of freedom or fight for it, remains to be seen.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Twitter
• Arab Spring
• censorship
• Social Media
• Internet Freedom

[woofro2003]

This is how it begins and, of course, they would refer to the Nazis as a particular argument for their counrty-selective censorship in order to obtain popular support, but they ignore the plight of millions in China, North Korea, the Middle-East and every other country oppressed by its government. Freedom is easily lost, but so costly to obtain ...

[jabberwolf]

@AuthentikRican

You can have freedom of speech, but twitter is a private company. You dont have rights ontop of other's rights.

Now saying that - we are all free to move away from twitter and use something else - which I think Twitter hasnt realized from other companies in the past

[AuthentikRican]

FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!

[senseless]

I agree self Aware.

[SelfAware1]

hmmmm... anything for money i guess. I dont like censorship, at all.