Twitter Censorship – Is Google Next?

Last Updated: Feb 13, 2012

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We don’t take internet freedom lightly here at UsenetReviews…not at all. And, you may have noticed that we publish as much as we can surrounding censorship, blacklisting, and border related information. But when Twitter said that they were going to start honoring blacklisting and censorship rules, regulation, and laws, on a by country basis, we were flabbergasted…”Is this the start of the fall of internet freedom?” was the first thought in every head in our office.

Damage Done – Stop The Revolution

As soon as the news was announced about the impending filtering, there was a rash of tweets calling for a boycot of the global service. So the Twitter PR team put together a damage control plan and said that the tweets that were censored in a particular country would still be available to the countries where there weren’t any legal conflicts. In spite of the explanation of the filtering easing some minds, there are still those out there that are calling for a boycott.

Some Things Will Never Change

In their released statement they pushed the fact that when you live in a country, even though you are still a citizen of another country, you are compelled to follow the laws and regulation of the country you are occupying. We are firm believers in the philosophy, “In Cyberspace, the 1st Amendment is a local ordinance.” But, I guess we have finally managed to find that there are borders in cyberspace. Take the case of Google…

India asked Google to censor their internet search results for the Indian populace of internet users. Google claimed at the time that the resources to do what the Indian government would be massive, and so politely declined to help them filter the internet in India. We were wondering what they would say about that now, considering Twitters selective filtering capability.

A Lot Of Time And Resources Wasted

Anyone who uses VPN, or Proxy technology very much, or the average Usenet user even, can tell you how easy these blacklists, restrictions, and censorships are to get around…a single server that isn’t blocked will serve the purpose. But in spite of these inconveniences, we work around the blocks, and now law makers globally are turning an eye to these services too. The recent SOPA and PIPA legislation, that was so effectively protested, had provisions in them that would have rendered these services ineffective…for any purpose.

To find out more about countries restricting the internet, censorship, or Usenet service, (which is never censored, or restricted,) check out our website, UsenetReviews. If you would like to tell us your thoughts on the censorship/restriction/blacklisting issue send us a Tweet to @usenetreviewz