Twitter to have extra flexibility to censor messages

PanARMENIAN.Net - Twitter, the microblogging service, gave itself extra flexibility to censor information in parts of the world that impose restrictions on self-expression.

According to Bloomberg, Twitter added the ability to censor tweets on a country-by-country basis, rather than globally, the company said in a blog post.

As Twitter expands, it gains a deeper toehold in countries that have what it called “different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.” San Francisco-based Twitter said the changes would let it withhold a posting, or tweet, in a country where a particular kind of content is banned - it cited France and Germany, which ban pro-Nazi propaganda.

“Twitter needs global expansion,” said Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Altimeter Group in San Mateo, California.

The shift would let Twitter comply with strictures in one country without having to pull offending tweets from its entire audience. Previously, Twitter banned offensive content on a global basis, rather than for a specific nation.

Twitter has been used as an agent of social change in parts of the world such as the Middle East. “Governments are on notice how social networks can dramatically impact” whether they survive, Owyang said.

The company will attempt to let the user know if a tweet is censored and will clearly mark when the content has been blocked, it said in the blog.

Twitter, with more than 100 million users, is grappling with more scrutiny about how it handles user content as it expands. Twitter said yesterday it was preparing to add the languages of Arabic, Farsi, Hebrew and Urdu. The company said it has not yet used the ability to censor by country.