“Censoring of Tweets Sets Off #Outrage”

image taken from the nytimes.com

            When I opened nytimes.com to the Technology page (on 01/28/12), this was the first article to appear. Apart from the amusing inclusion of the hashtag, I was immediately interested in the subject (especially given the recent uproar in the online community concerning copyright laws with SOPA). Twitter has now agreed to censor content published on its website in individual countries if there is a valid claim from the government that a tweet is illegal in that country. Using the example illustrated in the article: a negative comment about the king of Thailand will be replaced with a grey box saying “tweet withheld” in Thailand (as this is illegal there), but will be available in every other country. There has been a huge backlash against this decision from users but the company insists that it, just like all other media, must conform to international laws if it wants to be present in those countries at all.

            Personally, I understand the concerns people have regarding free speech and censorship – issues that are integral to the U.S. mindset (even more so now with new media technologies pushing the boundaries of what we consider “acceptable” free speech) – however I feel that people are very quick to judge companies for policies that they have very few options with. In all seriousness, what other choices do groups like Twitter have if they want to remain competitive on an international level? Sure, it would be wonderful from a U.S. perspective if Twitter stood up to those countries that required some degree of censorship, but that is simply unrealistic for a business that has to compete with every other social media website. Yes it has been used for incredible purposes but the site itself is not a humanitarian organization, nor is it above international law. It is, overall, a very simplistic concept that provides a limited, yet effective manner of communicating across great distances. Would it not be more unjust of Twitter to cut off hundreds of thousands of users simply because the governments of the countries in which they live do not share the same values of free speech as the United States?

           The more social media becomes a staple of our communicative diets, the more we are forced to confront the customs and even the laws of countries whose values differ tremendously from our own. There have been obstacles but overall there are so many ways in which our eyes have been opened and our biases broken down because of these close encounters with people who live outside the customs considered essential in American society (or in any other country for that matter). As corporations expand across oceans and attempt to provide services to as many people as possible, we will continue to be confronted with such issues and it is integral to the success of those companies that they understand these differences, even if it is considered unsavory by the American public.