In a slight change in policy, Twitter just announced that it enabled the ability “to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world”. Basically, if a tweet is illegal in a certain country, it will be censored in that country. In the rest of the world, it’ll still be completely visible.
Previously, Twitter had no control over tweets other than removing them globally (which they don’t do). Twitter says it’s introducing this policy because Twitter is growing internationally and into countries that have “different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression”. If Twitter didn’t change the policy to include the ability to censor, Twitter wouldn’t be able to exist there.
Twitter hasn’t censored any tweets yet, but it’ll likely happen as new countries get a hold of the service. Once the tweet is censored, it’ll be clearly marked with a link to an explanation. For what it’s worth, Google and other search engines already participates in a similar policy for certain countries. It’ll be interesting to see how this affects tweet-roots campaigns in other countries. [Twitter via MarketingLand]
light487
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:17 AMHrmm.. could be a reasonably good thing for some countries, such as China for example. Ex-pats can continue to use the service to communicate with friends and colleagues rather than having the whole service blocked.
Antipodean
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:42 AMJust when I start to think that the Twit had a reason to exist, they go and do this. It’s cowardly and negates any use to countries that are trying to free themselves from oppressive regimes! Till now they have been the means for heroic resistance. Now what use is it?
light487
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:36 AMSo you’re saying that people should break the law in those oppressive countries and seriously risk their well-being just to circumvent a block to use a service that could be filtered to allow them to use it legally? Mmmk..
Yes, you can use Twitter, Facebook, Gmail et al. in China, and other countries that block such services, if you use a proxy/VPN but it is still against the law to do so.. and usually in countries like that they have fairly hefty penalties and the prison systems aren’t all too great.
Antipodean
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 12:24 PMWhat are you talking about? The regime changes in Egypt and Libya, were largely successful due to social networks like Twitter. The Gov’t tried to shut it down but they sidestepped it and got the message out. Twitter capitulating to those countries would have seen the end to those fights. Oh, and in those cases, damned strait, they need to break the law, that’s a given in any civil conflict, is it not?
Ozoneocean
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 3:00 PMIn the case of Lybia, revolution was successful only due to armed conflict and bombing raids by international forces. Twitter didn’t do crap there. Both rebel groups and the international supporters simply put into motion plans they’d had for that contingency, taking advantage of the momentum in other surrounding countries.
I think you’re confusing what happened with Twitter in Iran during the failed protests there. What it largely served to do was get the word OUTSIDE the country and keep us informed of what was happening there, because not many locals could actually use the service for their own benefit.
Antipodean
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 4:20 PMActually I think you’ll find that a lot of the information that got to the yanks was through social sites like twitter. Maybe not to the same degree as in Egypt, but enough to make a difference! What they are doing now is pretty gutless in my book!
Richard
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 6:05 PMWho was the information helping but? The media or the military? I’m sure the army had far more efficient means to get information on the matter. It’s not like they could reasonably do anything based on what a random twitter post said anyway.
Whats the alternative anyway? If they don’t abide by the law the government is well within its rights and capabilities to shut down access to the service and then the people are arguably worse off than if twitter filtered some of the information.
Besides they already filter results, the only difference is everyone is stuck to a rule set that is probably very US centric in it’s logic.
Franz
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 5:27 PMIn other words, Twitter now serves the interests of governments and not people.