Los Angeles — The micro-blogging outfit Twitter on Thursday announced that it has now developed a technology to selectively refine tweets that run afoul of certain countries’ when there are local restrictions on speech rather than having to block them globally.
The additional adaptability disclosed is likely to escalate fears that Twitter’s commitment to free speech may be diminishing as the short-messaging company expands into new horizons in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.
“As we continue to grow globally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the aspects of freedom of expression,” the company wrote on its blog. “Some differ so much from our concepts that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as Germany and France, for instance, ban pro-Nazi content. But while that type of sentiment might be frowned upon, it is protected speech under the First Amendment here in the United States.”
But Twitter considers the censorship tool as a way to secure individual messages, or “tweets,” remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a gauntlet of different laws around the world.
“So far, the only way we could take account of those countries’ limits was to remove content globally,” Twitter said in a blog post. “Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively decline content from users in a specific country–while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also devised in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why.”
The micro-blogging outfit mentioned that it has not yet utilized this technology, but if the company is called up on to deploy it, “we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld,” Twitter said.
Twitter said it will use the IP address from which you are viewing the site to determine location. The company said it has expanded its partnership with anti-censorship site ChillingEffects.org on Chillingeffects.org/twitter, where notices concerning these take-down requests and activities will be posted.
The move comes at a time when the company is in the process of expanding its global business. “When we receive a request from an authorized entity, we will act in accordance with appropriate laws and our terms of service,” a Twitter rep said in a statement.
Twitter, like any popular Web service, regularly gets requests from content owners to remove content, like this DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice from Universal Music Group.