San Francisco-based company Twitter has said that it will now have the ability to censor tweets in specific countries, while keeping it available in the rest of the world, Los Angeles Times reported.

“As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression,” Twitter wrote on its blog.

“Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such a France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content.”

Twitter was only able to censor tweets worldwide.

But from today onwards, the company is giving itself “the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country—while keeping it available in the rest of the world”, Twitter wrote.

The ability to block a tweet in a specific nation will allow it to “respect [its] user’s expression, while also taking into consideration applicable local laws”, Twitter added.

“We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why,” the company wrote.

This means that when a tweet is blocked in a country, “a message will appear stating that the tweet has been withheld in that nation alongside a link that explains the reason as to why the tweet was block”, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Twitter has also said that it has not yet used the ability, but if and when it is required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, “we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld,” Twitter wrote.

The company has also partnered Chilling Effects http://chillingeffects.org/twitter to make it easier for users to find notices related to Twitter.





[via Los Angeles Times, images via Los Angeles Times and Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com]




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