Twitter to remove unlawful tweets: threat to free speech or the reality of internet business?

Microblogging platform Twitter has announced they are now able to remove tweets and accounts at the country level. The company is willing to remove certain content, if required by national law. The move by Twitter is heavily criticized in media worldwide. Many journalists see this new policy as a threat to free speech online. But is that fear justified?

The company speaks in terms of removing content after it is published in cases where it is considered to be unlawful. Twitter has no intention to actively monitor tweets or actively prevent specific tweets from becoming available online in a certain country where its content is prohibited. The new feature is not used to block controversial content for all users or in all countries, according to Twitter.

Actually, this new policy is quite similar to the concept of ‘notice and takedown’ (NTD) that is allready common in internet publishing. The basic idea of NTD is that anyone that is offended by a text on the internet can contact the website concerned and ask for the removal of the said content. If this content is indeed unlawful, the website has an obligation to follow-up on the NTD request. Crucial element is the fact that moderation is done after the content is published and that no filtering or monitoring is done before texts are published online. The latter would indeed limit free speech, but, the new policy of Twitter does not seem to work that way.

Twitter explains on their weblog that the introduction of their new feature is basically a technical innovation of their messaging service. Until recently, Twitter could only make messages unavailable for all its user at once, in cases where certain content was disputed. Now, they have developed technology that is able to distinguish users in different countries, so that they are able to block content in country A, where it is illegal, while keeping it available in country B. As an example, Twitter mentioned a local law in Germany and France that prohibits pro-nazi publications, a law that does not exist in many other European countries. This technology enables Twitter to adapt their services to local laws and regulations. The location of the user is determined on the basis of IP addresses.

Twitter's move will likely raise more questions of users that fear ‘censorship’. This is unfortunate, because this new policy by Twitter is actually making the service more sophisticated, and enables the company to be compliant with many different laws and regulations. For an international service like Twitter, this is simply a prerequisite to stay in business, in stead of risking all kinds of defamation claims or other questions of accountability. The European e-commerce directive, for example, prescribes services like Twitter to install a decent NTD procedure, or else they risk being accountable for displaying or distributing user-generated content that proves to be unlawful.

Twitter ensured users that the freedom of speech is an important value to them and promises to be transparent about removed messages. Furthermore, the new feature is not such a landslide change of policy as some people might think. Twitter allready removes messages if they prove to contain or link to content that violates copyrights, upon notification of the copyright holder concerned. Don't get me wrong: protecting internet freedom is very important, but we I guess we should only defend it when it is actually under attack.

References: Chilling Effects, Twitter