Reporting from Beijing, The Wall Street Journal announces, “Twitter Can Censor by Country.” The news must please censorship proponents the world over, perhaps even a few in the US Congress.
Journalists Loretta Chao and Amir Efrati inform us:
“Twitter Inc. says it can now make content selectively available to users based on geography, and plans to use that ability to enter countries with ‘different ideas’ about freedom of expression as a human right—reflecting the difficult ethical questions facing Internet companies.
“The effort underscores thorny issues for Internet companies as their websites become more global and interconnected among different countries, and as they must cooperate with diverse views on Internet content control. For websites like Twitter as well as social-networking site Facebook, this has meant being blocked in countries like China where controls are more aggressive.”
To be fair to Twitter, the issue of censorship in other countries is indeed a tricky one. Refuse to play ball at all, and you’re banned completely. Will that really help the end users, the citizens who struggle to obtain information? Perhaps a little censorship is a small price to pay for allowing them even limited access to the information superhighway. At least, that seems to be the tack Twitter has embraced.
The company is not caving completely, however. They have been blocked in China for over two years, and are unlikely to be allowed back in as a result of this announcement. Why? Because that government doesn’t even want its people to know that content has been blocked; Twitter insists on giving them at least that courtesy. It is interesting to note that the company is working with Chilling Effects, an Internet freedom advocacy group, to draft its take-down notices.
You’d have to live in a cave to not realize that right now, in our famously freedom-loving country, we are in the middle of our own Internet censorship battle. Here, money is at the center of the fight. Specifically, corporations want to stop the sale of pirated goods. Corporations are people too, don’t you know?
These companies do have a valid concern, but I don’t have to tell you that the wildly unpopular SOPA and PIPA Acts propose enforcement through ham-fisted tactics that leave no room for due process. (If you didn’t know that, do some research. Right now. I’ll wait.)
The article notes that Twitter has been a crucial facilitator of political protest and revolutionary action around the world. The company also has a history of supporting transparency and free expression. However, it must do what it has to do if it wants to keep expanding. At the least, it must protect its employees from prosecution for breaking the rules in foreign lands. Yes, that would be important.
Cynthia Murrell, February 02, 2012