Is Twitter Really Censoring People?

I’ve been watching a story float around for the last few days about how Twitter is censoring people. There was apparently a black-out for some folks yesterday to protest this Twensorship. If you read or scan the headlines, it looks like Twitter is censoring people on a country by country basis. The Huffington Post ran a headline that said, “Twitter Boycott Palnned To Protest Twitter’s Censorship Plan.” CBSNews.com ran a story titled ” Twitter’s Censorship Plan Rouses Global Furor.” With these types of headlines and stories in mind, I broached the topic on Twitter and ended up in quite an interesting conversation with Sandy Hubbard (@sandyhubbard) and Cynthia Schames (@CynthiaSchames).

As it turns out, Twitter may be getting attention for things it is not doing. In an article for Reuters titled, “Twitter’s censorship is a gray box of shame, but not for Twitter,” Paul Smalera notes that it is not Twitter that is actively blocking tweets. Rather, certain governments are asking that Twitter block content. Smalera writes,

Further, for a country to censor content, it has to make a “valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity” to Twitter, which will then decide what to do with the request. Twitter will also make an effort to notify users whose content is censored about what happened and why, and even give them a method to challenge the request. According to Twitter’s post, a record of the action will also be filed to the Chilling Effects website. The end result of a successful request is that the tweet or user in question is replaced by a gray box that notifies other readers inside the censoring country that the Tweet has been censored…

In essence, some could argue that Twitter is actually helping to highlight countries that do not allow free speech.

Internet versus the world

The overriding question to me is whether Twitter should pay credence to these governmental requests. The capitalistic argument is that in order to operate in a country, you have to work within that country’s framework. Google has world of experience in fighting governmental restrictions in China. It was noted in our conversation that countries are asking that content deemed “criminal” should be blocked. All well and good, but sometimes “criminal” can have a pretty wide berth. As a small example, I found this interesting Wikipedia page that delineates freedom of speech by country. Did you know it is illegal to blaspheme against religion in many countries? Did you know it’s illegal in France to create content that promotes race hatred? Do people in every country know 100% what the restrictions on their freedom of expression are? Will these little gray boxes come as a complete and total surprise? Can we revolt against things we aren’t aware are there?

The slippery slope of freedom

Defining the freedom of expression in a way that makes everyone happy is extremely difficult. I abhor racism. However, if I argue that yes, race hatred should be banned in the online world so far as content goes, am I really for freedom of expression? There are a lot of points of view that I find offensive. If I say that they should be censored because they bother me, isn’t that an awfully slippery slope?

Adding more complexity to the problem is that Twitter has a rather hands-off approach when it comes to issues of cyber-bullying. They will not block a person you accuse of bullying. Their company line is that you should call the authorities if you feel you are in danger. If we say that potentially harmful content is ok to censor, should we not have  a plan in place to ban content that actually IS harming people in real time?

These are all complicated questions. I’d love to hear your thoughts about them!

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isaacmao/9753846/ via Creative Commons

27 comments

  1. Interesting read, Margie, and certainly something to think about. I’m all about free-speech, but I also understand the desire to work within the framework of various governments. Gotta mull this one over a bit, but would love more information.

    1. Let me add a thought. I’m now thinking about the Arab Spring and how Twitter was a key communications tool for those who rallied against their governments. Could those governments have used this to prevent that sort of communication? Hmmm

      1. @KenMueller The Arab Spring- That term cracks me up. Replace a dictator with a theocracy that has many of the same issues of the old government. New boss is same as the old boss.

        Anyhoo, Twitter is walking a tightrope here. If they want to remain accessible in these countries there are things that need to be done. If we operate off of the Marketplace of Ideas there is much to be said for trying to keep the information flowing as best we can.

      2. @KenMueller That’s a good question and why I raise the issue, what exactly IS criminal in different countries? Seems like kind of a tough thing to define on a generic basis.

      3. @KenMueller And look what happened to the Arab Spring.Our Twitter-inspired short attention span ignored what happened later and the desire to do business with armed forces coupled with poor human intelligence ended up completely missing the religious political groups.

  2. Great article, margieclayman I think that most important thing to realize here is that twitter has no intention of PROACTIVELY blocking tweets. They only intend to block specific tweets that have been flagged as criminal, offensive, or otherwise problematic by a governmental body.

    This is an extremely notable distinction.

    It does not mean that a tweet containing an objectionable word will automatically be filtered or blocked. It means that content to which a government objects is subject to a process. That process is 1) not immediate, 2) not absolute–the blocked tweet will only be unavailable in that country on the native Twitter client.

    By refusing to delete tweets that are deemed objectionable, Twitter is actually protecting free speech, in my opinion.

    1. @cynthiaschames I agree it’s good that Twitter isn’t just doing a massive delete. However, I am not 100% convinced that they are protecting free speech. If a country where free speech is not flourishing asks for things to be blocked, is that protecting free speech if those blocks go through? Doesn’t seem like it to me. But as we have noted, it’s a tough issue.

  5. I’ve gone through a couple of swings of opinion on this since I first read about Twitter’s plans to allow governments to censor its citizens’ tweets. At first I was outraged, then I read what I thought was a well-reasoned and persuasive blog post ( here: http://technosociology.org/?p=678 ) about why it might actually be good for free speech from a certain point of view.

    The reasoning for this goes, I think, as follows. It is better to allow censorship within a country’s legal definitions because,

    1. It puts Twitter in control, not the government in question, at least in some sense.

    2. They can choose to honor or reject the request to censor. In the meantime, I suppose, the offending tweet would be visible. (Can they cause Twitter to suspend accounts, I wonder?)

    3. By only censoring the tweets within that country’s borders it allows the tweets to be seen in the rest of the world. 4. By at least nominally “cooperating” with the country in question, Twitter may (and I stress may) avoid being blocked completely, which causes the rest of the world not to hear the tweets in question.

    5. The blocked tweets are shown as “blocked by” outside the country in question. This raises awareness of the country’s activities in the rest of the world. (By the way, won’t it be interesting when the US government starts censoring people for linking to copywrite content or for allegedly “terrorist” activities?)

    6. Twitter gives information about how to circumvent the policy, which would basically render it ineffective.

    Honestly, I still haven’t made up my mind. If I could put Twitter’s profit motive completely out of the picture, it would be an easier call. As it is, though, it makes one wonder how much of this was driven by the investors’ demand for return vs how much by free speech concerns.

    On the plus side, I see this as an ingenious way to abide by the letter of the laws, but not the spirit. Repressive governments typically resort to stupid and ineffectual means stifle things they don’t like. This is a neat dodge that actually created more negative publicity for them, if that means anything.

    On the negative side, appeasing repression is never a good thing. At the very least, it causes Twitter to have to expand human and computational energy to implement these rules. And, if the governments in question find themselves looking worse and the censorship ineffective, they’ll still block Twitter. But maybe some countries won’t.

    1. @JoeCascio Great comment, Joe. Adding to the complexity, according to an article I read last night, is that apparently Twitter recently got a hefty investment from Saudia Arabia, a country that would also want the ability to block content that some folks might put up. So, to your profit question, it may be difficult to draw a clear line between where the money ends and the moral fiber begins.

      I’m also wondering where sites like Facebook and Google Plus are going to end up on this!

      1. @margieclayman The bottom line for me is that true free speech exists only outside the confines of any government or corporation. I think we are going to see some new, open source, grass roots services that don’t answer to the money.

  6. I was under the impression that given Twitter has enabled such censorship tools, even if they’re not used, the fact they’re there is of huge concern.Look at all the SOPA/PIPA fun, while the world was concentrating on that, ACTA moves steadily forward.

    The tools will eventually come in but complaining about them helps slow that introduction down.

    @cynthiaschames. your trust in government is laudable, those who live in developed countries generally have confidence that a due process has to be upheld for censorship to occur. However, the developed world is in the minority.

    As for the slippery slope argument, it’s a fascinating one, given that child pornography, for example, would also have to be included in that list of things that you dislike but have to accept will exist. The concern is that countries use subjects that the majority find unwelcome, like child pornography, to then introduce laws that impinge on things like freedom of expression.

    1. @NicWirtz Oh believe me, I have NO confidence in government.

      But: law is law. If a company wishes to operate in a specific country, they are then bound by the laws of that country. Period.

      Twitter has no choice in this matter. To me, this is the least obtrusive solution to their dilemma. Am I happy about any censorship? No. But as @JoeCascio very rightly points out, the message “This message is blocked in (country)” can raise awareness and may possibly be a catalyst for change in some of these dictatorial places that fear & repress free speech.

      1. @cynthiaschames Seems to me like it’s a choice between different country law or rely on a corporation, which hasn’t exactly gone too well in recent history and specific country laws.

        Twitter operates in numerous countries, my hope is that US law does not end up being the only one adhered to.

      2. @cynthiaschames @NicWirtz @JoeCascio One can hope that this raises awareness, but then what? We probably already know many of the countries where this would be likely to become an issue.

    2. @NicWirtz Yes. It’s a very slippery slope indeed.

      And it is interesting that the US government sort of slipped ACTA in while pulling back on SOPA and PIPA. There are all sorts of censorship activities of various kinds going on in the US right now. It will be interesting to see how freedom of expression here is looking in a year or so.

      1. @margieclayman What’s fascinating is how the US has basically bribed other countries to sign up.The one I remember offhand is New Zealand, they gave $20-30 million to some development program. That’s not how international law should be made.

  7. Interesting and makes one think…. Cyber bulling needs to be handled by the legal authorities, with the cooperation of Twitter or other social media platform where bulling is occurring. I too adhor censorship, if a government has laws that a company needs to follow to conduct business then should they be followed… Still thinking!

  8. Particularly regarding the movements toward online censorship and the current social fad of blocking, I’m reminded of words attributed to Mark Twain, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” The current tendencies toward the concepts that rules need to be followed because having rules is important, that anyone who doesn’t like what another person says should be able to block that other person, and toward enumerating the positives of censoring or blocking, that it isn’t all bad, are especially disturbing.

  9. So, how will we know if our government were to ban certain content from Twitter that we might otherwise receive, if Twitter considered that a “legitimate” request?

    I don’t have a good answer, but I’ve been wrestling with free speech on the internet since there’s been an Internet. My opinion is that we have free speech or we don’t. There’s no “kinda free.”

  10. Margie,

    Indeed freedom of expression or freedom of speech is a slippery slope. Should it be allowed if it is malicious or intentionally hurtful? Should it be allowed if it incites people to violence?

    Even governments that are founded on this basic freedom seem to be having second thoughts about how far we should be allowed to go. And, they could easily begin censoring content without most people even knowing it was being done.

    Of course they could enact legislation that advocates free speech and includes a list of “exceptions”. Venues or circumstances where expression would not be protected.

    I’m glad I am not charged with making such decisions.

    Cheers,Marc

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