Twitter's new censorship plan rouses global furor

Twitter will now allow each nation to decide if they want to censor the twitter. Internet censorship is an on going battle and this new move by Twitter is questionable, definitely not helping the cause.

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NEW YORK (AP) -- Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics - in a barrage of tweets - proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.

"This is very bad news," tweeted Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, who operates under the name Sandmonkey. Later, he wrote, "Is it safe to say that (hash)Twitter is selling us out?"

This is very bad news for activists. What role did Twitter play in the Egypt uprising, amongst others? The internet is the best method to get one's voice heard, so to speak.

San Francisco-based Twitter, founded in 2006, depicted the new system as a step forward. Previously, when Twitter erased a tweet, it vanished throughout the world. Under the new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives from governments, companies and individuals at the website chillingeffects.org.

The critics are jumping to the wrong conclusions, said Alexander Macgilliviray, Twitter's general counsel.

"This is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency and accountability," he said. "This launch is about us keeping content up whenever we can and to be extremely transparent with the world when we don't. I would hope people realize our philosophy hasn't changed."

I don't get it, the first paragraph clearly says it will censor any Tweet per any Gov'ts request, so then how the hell is this a good thing for freedom of expression?

I'm sure we're all aware of how important the internet and social media has been during, and continuring, the Arab Spring, OWS, and many more.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube’s role in Arab Spring

socialcapital.wordpress.com...

What was the role of social media?

Social media must work hand-in-hand with an ability to mobilize citizens. It is far too easy to simply “Friend” or “Like” a movement on Facebook and a retweet is never enough. The challenge is to put boots on the street, as protesters in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya know only too well.

Everyone agrees that social media add new arrows to the quivers of social activists. These social media can be helpful in: a) mobilizing protesters rapidly; b) undermining a regime’s legitimacy; or c) increasing national and international exposure to a regime’s atrocities. Any use of these social media is likely to be more successful in a country that has some form of democracy; so far, the exit of Tunisia’s Ben Ali is the only example we have of social media non-violently ousting an autocrat.

What nit-tweets.

The world will not stand for such Tweetment.

The Twitterpation with Twitter is gone forever.

Oh how tweet it is....

*waits for rotten tomatoes to fly*

reply to post by Swills


The move is questionable? Thanks for starting the thread, but the censorship and invitation to governments to silence a major portion of their populations whenever they feel like it is more than questionable, it borders on facism. No, not borders--facism sitting right there and making itself at home.

reply to post by Aleister


This would be a perfect time to start up you're own Twitter clone, or something original, because people will leave and look for a new outlet.

Biz Stone is one of the owners of Twitter and was interviewed by Howard Stern recently on the Stern show. It was a good interview and lets you get an idea who one of these Twitter owners is like. I don't understand this censorship ability they're allowing to Gov'ts.

Seems like a nice enough guy to me

reply to post by Swills

Thanks for the vids. What may be needed is for someone to start up a search engine which doesn't have any tracking devices and cold-war spy tech aimed at a countries own citizens. Jeez, I look at a simple news story and the tracking information flashing across the bottom of my screen goes on for five or six seconds--a very long time in cybertime. As for twitter, they started up something so good and now they are compromising their very intent.

Not surprising given that the CEO of twitter called the SOPA protest "foolish."



Not cool.

reply to post by Swills


In my opinion the move by Twitter was nothing more than bad timing. The source in the OP says that this will allow tweets that would normally be taken down worldwide, if it infringed upon the law and was called on it by a government, to remain visible worldwide except to the specific country that makes the claim. I can understand how people would scream censorship, as at first glance it does appear this way, but it seems to be just a case of bad timing with all of the PIPA/ SOPA brewha as the implementation of the policy would actually seem to keep more tweets from being censored. I could be wrong of course, and this could be just another part of the game.

reply to post by Swills


Elementary, my dear twits;

for purposes of the "intelligence" agencies [see arab spring, et al ], it was A-OK

but you don't want the Great Unwashed using it for similar purposes.

when Gandhi and Nehru came to power one of the 1st things they did was make civil disobedience a crime.

history does not repeat itself

but sometimes it rhymes

Originally posted by pianopraze
What nit-tweets.

The world will not stand for such Tweetment.

The Twitterpation with Twitter is gone forever.

Oh how tweet it is....

*waits for rotten tomatoes to fly*

I'm all out of rotten tomatoes.. so I shall throw a nice tweet one.

*Schhhhlopthud*

reply to post by Swills


Ironically, the original twitter, and facebook, albeit on a smaller scale.. was called..

EMAIL

reply to post by Swills


Never used twitter never will.