{"id":1130,"date":"2012-10-25T00:27:52","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T00:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:06","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:06","slug":"a-look-at-twitters-first-use-of-local-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/a-look-at-twitters-first-use-of-local-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look at Twitter\u2019s First Use of Local Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, October 23, 2012, by Neil Barnes
\nFor the first time ever, Twitter has enforced its local censorship policy<\/a> which came into effect in January of this year.\u00a0 The U.S. is among many countries that have laws which could affect the usage of Twitter accounts.\u00a0 Regarding Twitter\u2019s censorship policy, Twitter\u2019s chief lawyer Alex Macgillivray emphasized that \u201c[w]ith hundreds of millions of Tweets posted every day around the world, our goal is to respect our users\u2019 expression, while also taking into consideration applicable local laws.\u201d
\nTwitter enforced its new policy twice last week to comply with German and French laws regarding expression.
\nThe hate group Besseres Hannover (English translation: \u201cBetter Hannover\u201d) is a group seeking to implement some of the policies of Hitler in modern day Germany.\u00a0 In particular, Besseres Hannover calls for the implementation of a Fourth Reich, rounding up Jews, and expelling immigrants from Germany.\u00a0 Several Besseres Hannover members have been charged with creating a criminal organization and inciting racial hatred<\/a>.\u00a0 German authorities disbanded the neo-Nazi group and seized its assets earlier this month.\u00a0
\nGerman authorities then sought to shut down all the group\u2019s social network accounts.\u00a0 After receiving a letter from the German police requesting that Bessers Hannover\u2019s Twitter account be disabled, Twitter responded by eliminating access to the account from inside Germany.\u00a0 However, because the legal complaint is specific to Germany, Twitter did not disable access to the group\u2019s site to users outside of Germany.
\nA day after Twitter disabled Besseres Hannover\u2019s account, Twitter implemented further censorship<\/a> by agreeing to remove racist messages from Twitter.\u00a0 These offensive Tweets began on October 10 in the form of slurs and photos related to the Holocaust.\u00a0 In particular, images of a gaunt Holocaust victim and a pile of ash were displayed through Twitter.\u00a0 Anti-Islamic Tweets soon followed the initial anti-Semitic Tweets.
\nInstead of being spurred by a national government, a private entity persuaded Twitter to agree to remove a list of Tweets that the group found offensive.\u00a0 The French Union of Jewish Students threatened to sue Twitter for violation of France\u2019s law which forbids all discrimination based on religion, race, nationality, or ethnicity.\u00a0 Although Twitter complied with the group\u2019s request to remove the Tweets, the French Union of Jewish Students still plans to file a formal complaint against Twitter to seek justice against those responsible for the offensive Tweets.
\nAccording to Emma Llanso of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology, this could be only the beginning of Twitter\u2019s censorship of Tweets.\u00a0 She remarked<\/a> that \u201c[i]f Twitter seems to be stepping back in its support of free expression, it might find itself under more pressure\u201d from other nations or private groups.<\/p>\n

As technology plays an increasing role in communication around the world, Internet companies will more often find themselves positioned as intermediaries between technology users and national governments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many other prominent Internet companies have complied with local free speech laws<\/a>.\u00a0 After losing a 2006 appeal, Yahoo was forced to remove Nazi memorabilia from its auction site to conform to French law, which prohibits pro-Nazi propaganda.\u00a0 In the wake of the fury over the \u201cInnocence of Muslims\u201d video, Google decided to block access to the video in Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Libya.\u00a0
\n\u00a0As technology plays an increasing role in communication around the world, Internet companies will more often find themselves positioned as intermediaries between technology users and national governments.\u00a0 Twitter\u2019s recent censorship indicates there is a trend toward online companies complying with censorship requests.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, October 23, 2012, by Neil Barnes For the first time ever, Twitter has enforced its local censorship policy which came into effect in January of this year.\u00a0 The U.S. is among many countries that have laws which could affect the usage of Twitter accounts.\u00a0 Regarding Twitter\u2019s censorship policy, Twitter\u2019s chief lawyer Alex Macgillivray emphasized …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7674,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions\/7674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}