Twitter has caught some flack in other countries for giving accounts free reign on what they can tweet. Twitter responded that it’ll adjust its policy to include the ability to censor tweets if a country demands it to. We just might see Twitter’s first high profile case sooner than later because Brazil just sued Twitter for allowing accounts to tweet where DUI checkpoints are.
The ramifications are selfishly small but could mark as the tipping point when other countries start to take control of Twitter in their countries. The accounts in question (namely LeiSecaRJ) use Twitter to publicly share the locations of radar and DUI checkpoints so people following the account (near 300,000 twitterers) can avoid such stops. Brazil is predictably unhappy with such accounts because of their use in avoiding the police (and possibly promoting driving while drinking) and has sued Twitter and the accounts for a $US290,000/daily fine.
Twitter hasn’t yet responded to the lawsuit, but this dispute with Brazil might very well be the first domino to fall in Twitter’s new censorship policy. [O Globo via The Next Web]
Rich
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 2:27 PMAlways thought it was stupid that radio stations were allowed to announce where speed cameras were. Hopefully such information is banned from being made public!
S0ULphIRE
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 2:59 PMHell no! It’s called freedom of information, the right to free speech. I can’t tell someone that I saw a speed camera on xyz street? Jesus christ…
I mean seriously, on what authority can they stop me? Saying it’s tantamount to promoting drink driving is idiotic! Maybe I just don’t want to have my time wasted at a DUI stop?
Kent
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 3:00 PMYou want to know why people don’t want to sit with you at lunch?
Franz
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 4:26 PMRidiculous. This would be like Obama suing twitter for allowing someone to tweet people to not to vote for him.
Twitter won’t exist beyond 2016 if they give in to this.