Information Madness

Some Twitter users are planning to stop using the service on Saturday, 28^th January, in protest of the company’s new rule that allows for content to be blocked in specific countries. This policy was announced on the company blog yesterday and it will enable Twitter to block specific tweets on a country by country basis when the content is against the local publishing laws.

Many global companies like Google and Facebook have taken up similar policies to remove objectionable content as per the laws of the individual countries concerning speech. An example is Germany’s prohibition against pro-Nazi content. Many critics are worried that Twitter’s policy is going to destroy its capacity to work as a platform for spontaneous social movements.

Twitter is reactively building in a way to communicate in a transparent way with users to tell them why their content has been withheld. The users are not too happy with this transparency bit. Many are opposed to this new policy.  Many of such users are suggesting that Twitter should fight for freedom of expression. They feel that totalitarianism cannot be rationalized as a valid and different idea.

As per the policy, the biggest joke is that users outside of the country where it has been withheld will still be able to see the content. Twitter has created this tool to censor by country for the purpose of not having to remove illegal content from its global network.  Restrictions will be based on users’ IP address and users will be able to select their country through their account settings in case Twitter misidentifies their country.