Twitter’s New Censorship Tool Singles Out Topics by Country

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Published: January 29, 2012

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2011 was the year Twitter got credit for helping bring the fight for freedom to the streets of the Arab world and beyond. Will 2012 be the year the little birdie becomes a symbol for censorship? Twitter announced this week it had added the new ability for the company to censor certain types of tweets on a by-country basis. For instance, Germany and France ban pro-Nazi propaganda, and now instead of banning something worldwide, the company can curtail censorship to the needs of particular countries. Is that a good thing? It’s good for the 100-million user company because it aids its expansion. In a blog post [[link]] company reps said it will also attempt to let users know if a tweet or a topic is censored. Of course, whether that helps the social media giant fight the expansion of freedom or fight for it, remains to be seen.