Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Twitter has announced that it can now selectively censor tweets on a country-by-country basis,a move which may augur well for India which reportedly urged social media websites to remove offensive contents.
In its blog post,titled 8216;Tweets Must Flow8217;,the San Fransico-based micro-blogging company has said that it could 8220;reactively withhold content from users in a specific country8221; if legally required to do so.
The proposed move came amid reports of a legal clash between India and global Internet giants,including Google,Yahoo,Twitter and Facebook,over pre-screening user contents and removal of offensive materials from their websites.
A Delhi court had last month asked 21 social networking websites to remove derogatory content by February 6 this year.
In its blog,citing France or Germany which ban pro-Nazi content as examples,Twitter said yesterday: 8220;As we continue to grow internationally,we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.
8220;Starting today,we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country 8212; while keeping it available in the rest of the world.
8220;We haven8217;t yet used this ability,but if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country,we will attempt to let the user know,and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld.8221;
However,the micro-blogging service with over 100 million active users,said the removed content would be available to the rest of the world. Earlier when it used to delete a tweet,it would disappear worldwide,media reports said.
Along with social media sites like Facebook,Twitter,which is currently banned in China,is said to have played a pivotal role in uprisings that swept the Middle East region,particularly in countries like Egypt and Tunisia.
