Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Can Now Block Tweets In Specific Countries
itwbennett writes "In a blog post on Thursday, Twitter announced that it can now block individual Tweets in specific countries, while leaving them visible in other countries. 'We try to keep content up whenever and wherever we can, and we will be transparent with users when we can't,' the blog said. Twitter will publish requests it receives to block content through its partnership with Chilling Effects."
Colour me shocked.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/saudi-prince-invests-300-million-in-twitter/
If you voted for Nader, THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!!
I wouldn't necessarily applaud them for this - operating under the laws of a specific country may well be a case of having their hands tied.
However this is the right way to go about applying government censorship, if there is such a thing. Let those in the censoring country see a "your government has banned this tweet" message, and letting everyone else see "The X government has banned this Tweet, but here it is because you're not in X" will shed light on what was being censored, will shed light on the censorship itself, and both the attention and the trivial nature of defeating censorship will let those in the relevant country see it anyway.
That is something that arguably can be applauded.
A lot of other countries do not hold the same western values of free speech as the rest of us. Why can't some people respect that?
Because free speech is a natural right that all human beings are born with. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with "western values" (whatever the hell those are). The fact is that all human beings have the ability to engage in free speech; Governments or individuals may punish you for exercising that ability but the ability is still there. It's the same with the 2nd Amendment really -- you can regulate weapons all you want but people can still obtain and use them. Doubt this? Ask the guy who just got shanked in prison if the person who stabbed him didn't keep and bear arms.
BTW, you need not limit yourself to the US Constitution. From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This isn't for Egypt, Saudi Arabia or third world countries. They just outright block Twitter, Facebook, whatever and everybody knows it.
This is for North America, Europe and Asia [China/Japan], so their governments/industry partners can silently kill specific things without people readily knowing about it. So you still have the appearance of free speech, without actually having it.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Where are you?
Guess they were sacrificed in the name of global business interests. When I was a child my father taught me that America was a great country because censorship (in most forms) was completely absent from the the public mind. Hell, I remember reading about the days when leaflets were dropped by American bombers. We shoved our norm of "Freedom of Speech" in everyone faces. We laughed in the face of Communism and censorship. Those were the days...
In this country, any man could stand on a street corner and say what is on his mind. The soapbox on the street is no different from 140 character blurbs shouted out online, but for whatever reason 'people' (i.e. companies and governments) seem to think otherwise. You give an inch, and they'll take a foot. You give a foot, and apparently you end up with companies giving up to foreign regimes like prom girls. Moreover, you have our own legislatures supporting legislation like SOPA and PIPA. I'm guessing the next laws that are passed will form some brand of domestic secret police that's out to stop online piracy, and oh yeah, track down individuals who make defaming comments that "hurt the feelings" of some regime or foreign leader with less than a primary school education. We'll get our act together once our extradition treaties start being used to ship expats away to their country of origin for their ideas and comments said here.
At this rate the very idea of freedom of speech will be gone within our generation.
my mom posts on slashdot.
You are naive. Pirates are just the strawmen, the real goal of SOPA is to eliminate all user-generated content that threatens the monopoly of the Big Media.