Your rant on Twitter may not reach all

Exactly a year ago, aided by social networking, Egypt rose up against then president Hosni Mubarak. While the world marks the first anniversary of the domino effect that set off a series of uprisings across the Middle-East, Twitter now says it will be able to censor tweets in specific countries instead of blocking them globally.

Earlier, when Twitter removed a tweet, it would disappear worldwide. “Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why,” the company said.

“This is not censorship. Twitter has just made changes to its backend that will allow it to censor certain things for a particular country. It does not mean that every time a country asks for a certain thing to be censored, Twitter will comply. Twitter is only saying that it is now in a position to comply,” said Nikhil Pahwa, editor, Medianama, and a Twitter user.

He called it a business decision that could have stemmed from the role played by micro-blogging sites in reporting revolutions in the Middle-East. “Governments are getting jumpy about Twitter or Google search results. Twitter is not the first company to do this. It is a modification to the backend which will possibly reduce the friction between the website and the government,” Pahwa said.

Considering Twitter had decided to reschedule its maintenance downtime in support of the Iran uprising in 2009, one wonders if Twitter’s philosophy towards freedom of expression and speech has changed. 

Media professional Chhavi Sachdev thinks that is the case. “I can understand it playing safe, but this is a misguided decision. It goes against the very nature of what Twitter stands for. We don’t want to encourage hate speech but that’s a risk you take when you propagate free speech, and it is a small price to pay,” she said. “This announcement feels like a cop-out.”

“Social media has become oligopolistic. There are a few very large companies that control much of the conversation. These organisations are like governments and the governments are realising that the power of such platforms can go against their interest. That is the reason they want to rein them in,” Pahwa said. Avid Twitter users wonder if the move will curb freedom of expression. Rashi Vidyasagar, a student of criminology, says the government is allowed to induce a cap on people’s freedoms, under certain conditions by law. “The simplest example would be an Emergency. However, freedom of expression does not legally exempt you from defaming the government or speaking against the judgment of courts,” said Vidyasagar.

Today, if Twitter can comply to a censorship request from a certain country to avoid lawsuits and ensure smooth functioning, Vidyasagar fears it may also put a curb on speaking against private sector services.

“Customer service as such has improved now that private service brands hear consumer complaints on Twitter.”

Sachdev thinks this is a wasted opportunity. “If we have smarter cops and better cyber security, social media can become a tool to catch intolerant people instead of curbing freedom of speech,” Sachdev said. Dina Mehta, a prominent blogger, feels people will always find something else to speak up freely. “People will go away. They will move to other things,” said Mehta.