Twitter bows to pressure over censorship

Twitter, the microblogging service that has made a virtue of being used as an organising tool by political activists, has bowed to the realities of global business with a new approach to censorship.

The change will pave the way for long-term expansion into many new countries, though at the cost of tarnishing the reputation for idealism that has surrounded the network.

Disappointment over Twitter’s new sense of political realism spread widely on the internet on Friday. Ai Weiwei, a Chinese dissident artist, used the US company’s own service to declare: “If Twitter starts censoring then I’ll stop tweeting.”

The company said it would only take down tweets or accounts of users inside the countries where it receives a censorship order, rather than remove them for its global audience – the approach it would have had to use up to now if it had wanted to comply with an order. With a presence in an increasing number of countries as it looks to expand beyond its current base in the US, UK and Japan, the realities of business mean it will be exposed to direct action by more local courts.

The declaration that it will follow local censorship laws marks a new and more pragmatic phase in the company’s evolution, as it seeks to expand its network and start making profits, according to some observers.

By backing Twitter’s previous, freewheeling approach, “venture capitalists in Silicon Valley were underwriting free speech around the world – it was great, but I don’t think it was sustainable”, said Evgeny Morozov, an expert on internet censorship.

In a blog post explaining the new policy, Twitter said that international growth would lead it to “enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.” But it hinted that it would draw the line at places with the sort of repressive regimes that have come to tremble at the power of internet activists: “Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there,” it said. One person familiar with the company’s plans said speculation that it was preparing the ground for an entry into China was “off base”.

Experts on international censorship said the concessions at Twitter amounted to a necessary compromise and the least it would have to do to be able to operate as a global business without facing sanctions.

“It’s an awful lot better than a global ‘takedown’ policy,” said Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School. Twitter must comply with censorship “or face either physical punishment or blocking”, he added. “This is a compromise.”

Under Jack Dorsey, the co-founder who returned to the company as chairman last year, Twitter has embarked on rapid international expansion that it hopes will lift its current 100m users to 1bn, matching the global growth of Facebook. In the coming years, it has set its sights on entering a range of Western European countries, as well as Brazil and other locations in Latin America and South Korea.

The effect of Twitter’s new approach will depend on its willingness to resist censorship requests that are not backed by court orders and to disclose when it has been forced to remove material, censorship experts said. Twitter promised to publish all censorship requests, unless it is subject to a gag order, on Chillingeffects.org, a website set up to bring greater transparency to international censorship.