Twitter Subordinating Censorship to Business

TWITTER IS TAKING STEPS to selectively censor messages country-by-country when it receives "a valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity." I wonder what that means to free range tweeting but I imagine how some commentary from ground zero of protests will be muted.

Twitter already deletes content (tweets, images and links) when presented with DMCA requests. " I'm listening to what Christian Payne makes of the Twitter policy in the audio clip below. I'd expect Twitter would seriously consider requests to scrub certain hashtags from its timelines in the county of origin. Marshall Kirkpatrick wonders, "If told to do so by a government massacring its citizens in the streets, will Twitter render all people in that country unable to see messages of protest on its network? Will shouting into such an eerie silence change the way such Tweeting campaigns also engage with the outside world?"

This kind of thing is bound to happen before the end of 2012. I think it's the cost of doing business.

Documentally on Twitter and Censorship

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