Censorship comes to Twitter: Free speech climb down or best case scenario?

Social networking  Twitter has announced it now has the ability to show tweets made through its service on a country by country basis, allowing censorship of the service from within.

As Twitter has grown in popularity and become a worldwide phenomenon, the thorny issue or censorship was always going to rear its head in the end.

The current system means a Tweet taken down as inappropriate disappears worldwide, even if only deemed unsuitable in one particular place. The improvements mean that they will only need to be removed in countries where laws are being broken, not universally. 

The makers of Twitter clearly want it to spread to as many countries as possible, so they can make as much money as possible. As while some users may herald it as a beacon of free speech, those counting the beans over at Twitter Towers are clearly businessmen; after its recent comments on Wikipedia’s stance over the SOPA protests, this should come as no surprise to anyone.

While this form of censorship is already used by Google and others, it’s only raising eyebrows due to one of the most publicised ways Twitter has been used since its creation; namely, for free speech as a micro-blogging tool. Twitter has enjoyed the good publicity this has gleaned it, but that may now come flying back in its face as it looks to possibly embrace capitalism over freedom of expression.

However, it is hard to see any such protest making much of an impact. The Top 10 followed Tweeters list (number eight Barack Obama excluded) is now as inane and apolitical as you could hope to scrabble together, featuring the colossal wit and intellect of Lady Gags, Justin Bieber and Katy Perry in the top three. Politics isn’t exactly number one on Twitter anymore, if anyone was still in any doubt as to its true identity.

It does of course leave a hole for another social networking tool to nip into. Any takers?