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Censorship Communications Government Social Networks Twitter Your Rights Online

Twitter Can Now Block Tweets In Specific Countries 151

Posted by samzenpus from the 142-countries-or-less dept.
itwbennett writes "In a blog post on Thursday, Twitter announced that it can now block individual Tweets in specific countries, while leaving them visible in other countries. 'We try to keep content up whenever and wherever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can't,' the blog said. Twitter will publish requests it receives to block content through its partnership with Chilling Effects."
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Twitter Can Now Block Tweets In Specific Countries More

Twitter Can Now Block Tweets In Specific Countries

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  • Lovely (Score:3)

    by the Dragonweaver ( 460267 ) on Thursday January 26, 2012 @11:25PM (#38836151) Homepage

    A brilliant means of censorship. Gotta love Big Brother.

    • Re:Lovely (Score:5, Interesting)

      by davester666 ( 731373 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @12:25AM (#38836379) Journal

      This isn't for Egypt, Saudi Arabia or third world countries. They just outright block Twitter, Facebook, whatever and everybody knows it.

      This is for North America, Europe and Asia [China/Japan], so their governments/industry partners can silently kill specific things without people readily knowing about it. So you still have the appearance of free speech, without actually having it.

      • so their governments/industry partners can silently kill specific things without people readily knowing about it.

        If they actually do post it on chilling-effects, it won't be very silent.

        Besides, what are they going to do, block the tweets for the latest hate-gazm from the Newt and Romster? They aren't going to be able to stop OWS from organizing just from blocking twitter.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ihmhi ( 1206036 )

        This is for North America, Europe and Asia [China/Japan], so their governments/industry partners can silently kill specific things without people readily knowing about it. So you still have the appearance of free speech, without actually having it.

        This would be trivially easy to test. Hell, it'd be trivially easy to *block*:

        1) Set up a bunch of VPNs/proxies in every country.

        2) Suspect a link has been "disappeared"? Copy/paste it into this magic website.

        3) Website reads and returns the text of the tweets from each country with an error message for those who blocked it.

        It's be a pretty great barometer for how much of a shithole your country is when it comes to freedom of speech.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by T.E.D. ( 34228 )

        This isn't for Egypt, Saudi Arabia or third world countries.

        Go try telling that to Arab activists (eg: Iyad ElBaghdadi [twitter.com]). They are livid about this. There appears to be a "blackout" boycott effort being organized for tomorrow.

    • Not at all!

      Twitter can block tweets in some countries but the country could block twitter anyway. Superficially it appears that twitter is cooperating, but what do we know about censorship on the internet? [wikiquote.org]

      This will only silence an actual tweet, if nobody in the world is sufficiently incensed by the censorship. As soon as a tweet is blocked, it will be retweeted like crazy, as well as mirrored on countless websites. It effectively neuters censorship.

  • About Respecting Sovereignty (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    This has nothing to do with censorship. It's about a company respecting other countries laws and their sovereignty. A lot of other countries do not hold the same western values of free speech as the rest of us. Why can't some people respect that?

    Their countries, their laws. If companies want to do business there or not be blocked, they should respect them. I applaud Twitter on taking this step.

    • Streisand Effect, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by srjh ( 1316705 ) on Thursday January 26, 2012 @11:43PM (#38836217)

      I wouldn't necessarily applaud them for this - operating under the laws of a specific country may well be a case of having their hands tied.

      However this is the right way to go about applying government censorship, if there is such a thing. Let those in the censoring country see a "your government has banned this tweet" message, and letting everyone else see "The X government has banned this Tweet, but here it is because you're not in X" will shed light on what was being censored, will shed light on the censorship itself, and both the attention and the trivial nature of defeating censorship will let those in the relevant country see it anyway.

      That is something that arguably can be applauded.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JWW ( 79176 )

        I would be much more impressed if twitter said "we're leaving" to India instead of saying "ok, we'll censor our users tweets."

        Very cowardly move on twitter's part.

        • So your solution would be, instead of Indians having a partially-censored network, you want Twitter to voluntarily fully censor the network for them. Whose side are you on again?

          • A better solution (and I don't know, maybe this is what they're going to do) would be to not silently kill the tweets but to indicate that there is a censored tweet. They'd be complying with the letter of the law but still letting people know this was going on (and people would find other ways to track down and publicise the censored content).

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by http ( 589131 )

        Your government has censored this post.

        Still applauding?

        • Re:Streisand Effect, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @05:38AM (#38837401) Homepage

          In the past, there would be simply silence. A government order would be delivered to a Twitter (or a Facebook or a forum) and the material would disappear, everywhere. Often the material was child pornography - most links removed by Twitter last year were child porn links.

          Now, there is a trace left for every act of censorship. When a government demands something be removed (and this will only matter for those countries in which Twitter is doing business and has offices - e.g., not Iran, but France, Germany, etc) the rest of us will find out, as will the twitterer. This is the minimum amount of accommodation that Twitter can make to a censoring government while still doing business in that country at all, and is less accommodation than they used to do, or anyone else (including Slashdot) does.

          So, yes, I am applauding Twitter for letting me know that they were ordered by the government to censor me, for reporting the act of censorship to Chilling Effects, and for routing around that censorship where that government has no authority.

          • Mod parent up! This is a strong move *against* global censorship on Twitter's part; while at the same time respecting local laws and tracking censorship activities. They've made lemonade from lemons.

    • natural right (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shakrai ( 717556 ) * on Friday January 27, 2012 @12:08AM (#38836315) Journal

      A lot of other countries do not hold the same western values of free speech as the rest of us. Why can't some people respect that?

      Because free speech is a natural right that all human beings are born with. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with "western values" (whatever the hell those are). The fact is that all human beings have the ability to engage in free speech; Governments or individuals may punish you for exercising that ability but the ability is still there. It's the same with the 2nd Amendment really -- you can regulate weapons all you want but people can still obtain and use them. Doubt this? Ask the guy who just got shanked in prison if the person who stabbed him didn't keep and bear arms.

      BTW, you need not limit yourself to the US Constitution. From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

      Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
      Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

      Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

      • Because free speech is a natural right that all human beings are born with. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with "western values" (whatever the hell those are). The fact is that all human beings have the ability to engage in free speech

        I like what you say and in fact, I know the truth of it myself. But what you're doing there isn't going to work on that sort of person. What you're doing is speaking to them like they are reasonable adults. Maybe you believe they will rise to the occasion given the opportunity. What they believe is not reasonable. That's why it can't work, no matter how true and reasonable it is. The only way to change anything is to recognize you are dealing with a phony system and invalidate it.

        The fact is, the r

      • Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

        Uh, how does that even make sense? I want to exercise my right to get on TV before the Republican debate. I will moon everyone. According to that declaration, I ought to be able to send that message out through the media I want, which is TV. Is this what they were thinking? Or were they just trying to get a jab in at USSR?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Tim C ( 15259 )
          You have the right, but that doesn't mean that anyone is obligated to provide you with the means to exercise the right (though arguably simply pulling your trousers down in public is not expression, it's merely childish lewdness and so not deserving of such lofty protection - but that's a different matter). They're just not entitled to prevent you (where "They" in this case means "the government" or similar entity). If you can't convince an existing broadcaster to give you your 15 minutes of fame, you are f

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tepples ( 727027 )
            Once all available permits have been sold and all owners of advertising slots have declined you, what's the next step toward exercising free speech?
          • Uh, by that standard, the USSR had the freest speech in the world. All you needed was a permit, after all....

      • It's the same with the 2nd Amendment really -- you can regulate weapons all you want but people can still obtain and use them. Doubt this? Ask the guy who just got shanked in prison if the person who stabbed him didn't keep and bear arms.

        That's the worst argument I've ever heard. We also regulate murder, go ask the family of someone who just got murdered how effective the law against murder is. That doesn't mean we shouldn't still try to lay down a framework of law to prevent it happening.

        • That doesn't mean we shouldn't still try to lay down a framework of law to prevent it happening.

          Prevent is probably the wrong word... we punish AFTER it happens - in general, laws meant to "prevent" things have far more serious effects than was intended. Collateral damage, as it were.

      • Because free speech is a natural right that all human beings are born with. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with "western values" (whatever the hell those are). The fact is that all human beings have the ability to engage in free speech; Governments or individuals may punish you for exercising that ability but the ability is still there. It's the same with the 2nd Amendment really -- you can regulate weapons all you want but people can still obtain and use them. Doubt this? Ask the guy who just got shanked in prison if the person who stabbed him didn't keep and bear arms.

        I should probably read up a bit on Natural Rights, but.....

        Where do you draw the line? All human beings have the ability to hit a child. Does that mean that hitting children is a Natural Right? Realistically, I agree that Speech is a Natural Right, but philosophically I have an issue with how you present the case. I don't necessarily agree that because a prisoner can get access to a weapon that all Men have a Natural Right to bear arms. Likewise for "drugs". While I would argue that most, if not all d

    • The universal nature of human rights and freedoms is beyond question.
      -- 2005 World Summit, paragraph 121

    • What you're arguing for is 'cultural relativism'.
      Your post just seems too well crafted, and feels trollish to me, but in case this is actually that you think, 'cultural relativism' lost.

      All international human rights instruments adhere to the principle that human rights are universally applicable.

      Countries who violate peoples freedom though censorship are universally in the wrong.

      • "Cultural relativism" is simply a fact, in that cultures produce morality. You can deny that all you like, but it's obvious from history and anthropology.

        Of course, the idea that you have to tolerate another culture's morality is also grounded only in one's own culture, and is clearly not shared by many cultures.

        Yes, at the bottom is nihilism of a sort. How you deal with that is your problem, ultimately. Hold onto your values as loosely or as tightly as you like, but don't look for the universe itself to co

        • Mod parent up! Cultural relativism is a fact. International groups can claim that human rights like free speech are universally applicable, but an Ebola outbreak, zombie apocalypse, nuclear holocaust, or a planet smashing comet is all that it will take to send us back to feudalism and might-makes-right morality. We may advocate for treating free speech as a universal right; but as long as other nations have the might to protect their borders and claim their own sovereignty, they can make their own laws.

    • Actually, it's about them reluctantly following the rules of those countries, yet still letting the rest of the world route around those rules, and being completely transparent when censorship does occur (with their partnership with Chilling Effects.) Twitter is kind of being a warrior for free speech in its way here.

  • Shocking!! money? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Moray_Reef ( 75398 ) on Thursday January 26, 2012 @11:37PM (#38836193) Homepage

    Colour me shocked.

    http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/saudi-prince-invests-300-million-in-twitter/ [nytimes.com]

  • Why would twitter (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dyinobal ( 1427207 ) on Thursday January 26, 2012 @11:39PM (#38836197)

    Why would twitter even, work to create such a functionality? Is this in reaction to SOPA, were they afraid they'd end up getting shut down in the USA if it passed and they don't want to be caught with their pants down?

    Even so if this was the case why advertise it? How long before some draconian government demands that twitter use this to censor it's site 'for' its citizens.

    • SOPA is about piracy. I don't know of any data compression method that will let you put a feature length movie into 140 characters.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Easy, here, take a look at this compression format [wikipedia.org]. You just need a special decompressor software and Internet access to unpack it.

        And yes, linking is crime as well in SOPA.

      • pretty sure linking to pirated content on your site can get you 'blocked' under SOPA.

      • Re:Why would twitter (Score:4, Funny)

        by BradleyUffner ( 103496 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @01:10AM (#38836541) Homepage

        I don't know of any data compression method that will let you put a feature length movie into 140 characters.

        Here ya go... The Perfect Storm compressed to less than 140 characters: "They all die"

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by BradleyUffner ( 103496 )

          Ohh crap, I just realized that anyone who reads that is pirating the movie. Sorry guys.

          • Re:Why would twitter (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Dyinobal ( 1427207 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @01:24AM (#38836603)
            I know you're trying to joke but it honestly wouldn't surprise me that the entertainment industry would want to go after people who posted spoilers.
            • Maybe not spoilers but I'm surprised they haven't used it against bad reviews. After all, it's basically exactly the same argument as piracy. We have no way of proving people who downloaded the movie otherwise would have paid to see it, just as we have no way of proving people who read a bad review of a movie otherwise would have paid to see it. If the former is a valid reason to instigate laws to prevent piracy how far a step is it for the latter to be used to justify laws against bad reviews?

      • SOPA is about piracy. I don't know of any data compression method that will let you put a feature length movie into 140 characters.

        Actually, you could do it with uuencode, but the length of time and the total number of tweets...you might as well get a minimum-wage job and work to BUY the movie - it would take less time/effort.

      • Re:Why would twitter (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Hentes ( 2461350 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @02:45AM (#38836817)

        You are naive. Pirates are just the strawmen, the real goal of SOPA is to eliminate all user-generated content that threatens the monopoly of the Big Media.

      • There are seven pitches in the musical scale if you ignore octaves and accidentals. A note can be short or long compared to other notes. With 14 possibilities of (pitch, duration), you can fit two notes into one byte. This way, a tweet hold not only the nine notes sufficient for accidental infringement (Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music) but also the entire recognizable melody of the first verse and chorus of a popular song.

    • Have you been watching the news? Governments already have demanded Twitter block tweets in their countries. Egypt blocked Twitter during the revolts. This is just to keep themselves out of trouble when that sort of thing happens.

      As bad as SOPA is, I very much doubt it has anything to do with this.

  • People living in repressive governments have been using proxies for years. This is irrelevant.

    • Re:Proxy. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Thursday January 26, 2012 @11:58PM (#38836283) Homepage Journal
      No, it is very relevant. Besides the fact that not everyone knows about proxies(and they are still not trivial to use on mobile devices, which is what many protesters use), you also have the fact that this is very much a "silent" form of censorship. Unlike less "refined" methods of censorship(for instance the "great firewall of China" where whole sites are blocked), you may not even realize that something had been censored. I doubt there are a significant number of people so paranoid that they constantly connect via a proxy just to check their twitter, esp. since proxies can often introduce a non-trivial amount of latency.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by JWW ( 79176 )

        Agreed.

        No matter what anyone says. Today Twitter looks far more evil than Google.

        • Agreed.

          No matter what anyone says. Today Twitter looks far more evil than Google.

          Not for those who don't use it.

          If I decided that Twitter, what Twitter does, or the content users of Twitter publish were important and indispensible to my life and my well-being, then yes, I could possibly be tempted to view things like this as an immense evil inflicted on my being. I could also snap out of that kind of thinking and realize Twitter has no power over me except what I elected it to have, and that in such a case I should have chosen more carefully.

          Twitter is nothing like the government

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by JWW ( 79176 )

            Yep. I'm still deciding if I want to delete my twitter account or not.

            • Yep. I'm still deciding if I want to delete my twitter account or not.

              The "tell" is when a company springs up overnight and is suddenly what EVERYONE MUST HAVE and instantly becomes some kind of HUGE FUCKING TREND. Those tend to be a waste of my time. What everyone "must" have tends to change rather suddenly. "Everyone else is doing it!" wasn't a good enough reason for me back in elementary school and it's not a good enough reason for me now. This includes things like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

              Besides which, neither Facebook nor Twitter are doing anything novel o

        • No, quite the opposite. Twitter as actually being as brave as they can reasonably get away with. There's a pandemic of misunderstanding here.

          • Agreed. Twitter is taking a strong stance against censorship today and providing a checks-and-balances approach to censorship. They are containing censorship, rather than allowing global blackouts. They're actively tracking censorship and then routing around it. There is wide spread misunderstanding here.

      • Re:Proxy. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Baloroth ( 2370816 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @12:19AM (#38836363)

        No, it is very relevant. Besides the fact that not everyone knows about proxies(and they are still not trivial to use on mobile devices, which is what many protesters use), you also have the fact that this is very much a "silent" form of censorship.

        Someone has a major case of "I didn't read TFA." Relevant quote:

        If Twitter does remove a tweet, users in the country in which it was removed will see a grayed-out tweet in their timeline that says a message from an identified user has been withheld.

        This is the exact opposite of "silent" censorship as you seem to mean it. The users know something was blocked, and it sounds like they know who sent it.

        • And you really think they won't go the next step and remove that as well? Furthermore, do they explain what "withheld" means? I doubt anyone not familiar with Twitter will realize what that means(not to mention doing so is probably worse than just deleting it, as it essentially marks the poster as a 'troublemaker')

          • And you really think they won't go the next step and remove that as well?

            Forgive me for only being outraged at their actual actions and not their potential actions.

            I doubt anyone not familiar with Twitter will realize what that means

            Probably a fair point - perhaps they should link directly to Chilling Effects from that grayed-out tweet. It's hard to say, since they haven't actually used this yet.

        • I think there are really maybe four of us who understand that this is a measure against censorship, as much as Twitter can make one. The outrage-machine is in full swing and completely misinterprets what is actually going on.

          • This is /. so nobody reads TFA but the quote GP highlights should be in the summary - it's almost the most important part of the story, telling people about censorship of tweets is a whole different ball game than just "blocking" tweets. The fact that it's been left out of the summary is probably a calculated move to provoke just the kind of reaction you're seeing from a community of people who are largely against censorship. If some guy pokes a big stick in a beehive causing the bees to come out and ruin y

      • If I lived in a country with a history of that sort of censorship then I'd proxy my twitter.

        I can't speak to what other people would do... but it won't effect me.

  • When did they break the internet? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mosb1000 ( 710161 ) <mosb1000@mac.com> on Thursday January 26, 2012 @11:47PM (#38836241)

    How am I supposed to build a webpage, when I have no clue what hyperlinked content will actually be available to the viewer? This is ridiculous.

    • How am I supposed to build a webpage, when I have no clue what hyperlinked content will actually be available to the viewer? This is ridiculous.

      Really, you're just discovering broken links in 2012?

      So you say you don't like your government censoring ... have you tried turning it off and back on again yet?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by derfy ( 172944 )

        Yes, I've done that. YES, I've tried unplugging and plugging it back in...it's kinda hard to see though because the lights are out.

      • I've tried rebooting my government but I'm afraid it won't have valid flash to re-run from and none of us can afford a blinking twelve style government.

        can we?

        • I'm beginning to think that a blinking 12 government beats one that tells you it is 13 o'clock with a perfectly straight face.

          • I'm beginning to think that a blinking 12 government beats one that tells you it is 13 o'clock with a perfectly straight face.

            What's so wrong with telling someone it's 1 PM? It'll be 13:00 in about six minutes in my time zone.

            • A) Show me a culture that actually calls it "13 o'clock" instead of "thirteen-hundred hours" or just "thirteen-hundred."
              (Actually, I would be curious to know if any do.)

              B) Perhaps you aren't getting the Mickey Mouse Club reference. or...

              C) Perhaps I am way too old...
              • B) Disney Channel wasn't on basic cable when I was growing up. Until 1997, it was considered premium, as HBO is today.
                • There was no basic cable when I was growing up. No cable TV at all. Mickey Mouse Club was in re-runs in the afternoons when I got home from school. Actually, I thought the show was boring and switched over to Batman & Robin or Lost in Space once I saw that hoard of brats singing that stupid song.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        I'm afraid we'll just have to wipe the disk and install another government. Just switching the UI every 4 years isn't helping.

  • #ABANDONTWITTER (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    #ABANDONTWITTER - can I be the first to say it? YES! The internet was a great tool to work around a lot of problems... what ever happened?

  • Now I know I will never get a Twitter account.
    • I'll create one for you, then cancel it so that you can say you quit.
      • If I could get a million people to do this for me then I could be the biggest quitter ever!
      • OK. There. I registered "AccessGrant" as the Twitter handle & Grant Robertson as the name -- Then immediately Deactivated the account.

        Your account will be permanently deleted in 30 days. If you change your mind you can reactivate by logging in before your account is deleted permanently.

        If you actually would like to reconsider, please post your public PGP key and I'll post back the PGP encrypted password. Alternatively you can send me a message at the email address listed above. Note however I don't get spam -- That is: Any message that is not cryptographically verifiable by PGP key will be ignored.

  • Where did it go? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lazycam ( 1007621 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @02:05AM (#38836731)
    Liberty? Freedom? Justice?

    Where are you?

    Guess they were sacrificed in the name of global business interests. When I was a child my father taught me that America was a great country because censorship (in most forms) was completely absent from the the public mind. Hell, I remember reading about the days when leaflets were dropped by American bombers. We shoved our norm of "Freedom of Speech" in everyone faces. We laughed in the face of Communism and censorship. Those were the days...

    In this country, any man could stand on a street corner and say what is on his mind. The soapbox on the street is no different from 140 character blurbs shouted out online, but for whatever reason 'people' (i.e. companies and governments) seem to think otherwise. You give an inch, and they'll take a foot. You give a foot, and apparently you end up with companies giving up to foreign regimes like prom girls. Moreover, you have our own legislatures supporting legislation like SOPA and PIPA. I'm guessing the next laws that are passed will form some brand of domestic secret police that's out to stop online piracy, and oh yeah, track down individuals who make defaming comments that "hurt the feelings" of some regime or foreign leader with less than a primary school education. We'll get our act together once our extradition treaties start being used to ship expats away to their country of origin for their ideas and comments said here.

    At this rate the very idea of freedom of speech will be gone within our generation.

    • Re:Where did it go? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 ) on Friday January 27, 2012 @05:14AM (#38837295) Homepage

      This move by Twitter has been completely misunderstood. It is difficult to find a platform more committed to free speech than Twitter.

      What has changed is that what used to be a global censorship is now limited to the governments that force the material offline.

      In the past, if a country in which Twitter was doing business told them to pull a tweet, they'd have to pull it around the world. Now, it will a. only be pulled in the country that ordered the Tweet censored, b. the person who wrote it will find out about it, and c. the chilling effects clearing house will be notified.

      Every country will censor something. The US will censor state secrets, libel and slander, and threats. In France, denying either the Armenian or Jewish holocausts will be censored. In some countries, blasphemy is censored. In Germany, any discussion of the Nazis is censored. Before this policy by Twitter, all those things would result in a global ban.

      I really don't understand the outrage (I do understand the outrage at the governments which censor, but not at Twitter.) Is reading comprehension so universally bad?

      • Mod parent up! This is a strong move by Twitter to contain censorship, track it, and route around it. We should be glad for the work they've done!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hweimer ( 709734 )

      Liberty? Freedom? Justice?

      Where are you?

      https://joindiaspora.com/ [joindiaspora.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ltap ( 1572175 )
      If you were a child in, perhaps, the 1970s, that would be understandable. However, the sheer amount of coercion and silent censorship done in the 50s and 60s, by both companies, the US government, or both working together is terrible to consider. Things like erotic art and novels being destroyed by customs agents on importation (government), the Hays Code (which banned depictions of "miscegenation" or inter-racial relationships, as well as negative depictions of priests, industry), the almost total lack of

  • Wouldn't it be better if the countries in question had to block Twitter altogether to get rid of dissent? - That would cause more frustration and more anger towards the authorities, thus hopefully resulting in a revolution. Greyed out tweets won't have the same effect, and the goal here must be freedom from any form of censorship, right?

  • The AC (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I routinely post AC, even though I have a /. account. Want to know why? So that that any of the insider knowledge I have limits it's damage to /. if I decide to shoot my mouth off about a previous employer or some other entity. It's much easier to just post as AC than it is to create an account that can be purged or censored all at once.

    This is the lesson for Twitter. Censoring individual tweets, treating them like spam, are the same thing. But The US is the only country in the world where free speech is en

  • ... the military industrial complex is to get to know each other around the world, that there are no ghost in the closet or monsters under the bed, that the mass majority of people on this planet are to busy living their daily lives to have any motive to go to the other side of the planet and kill people they never met. But the military industrial complex has their war tactics to cut communications of the enemy. And that makes the people, the 99% the enemy to... Who?

  • ...is that they announced this, publicly, as if it's something they are actually proud of.
    WTF?
  • I don't know why social media sites (facebook, twitter) think they can do whatever they want without any backlash.
    Myspace thought the same thing, and look where they are now.
    Just because you're on top today, doesn't mean you will be tomorrow.
    And yes, I'm just pissed because you KNOW the US government is going to dip its fat fingers into this.

  • Twitter is a US company. Why does it care if someone tweets something objectionable in another country? This isn't Twitter's problem!

    What motive does Twitter have to help oppressive regimes oppress their people? Are they being bribed by foreign governments? I just don't see how this can benefit Twitter when those foreign governments have no say in how Twitter is run.

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