Mathew Ingram is disturbed by the recent decisions of Twitter, Google and Reddit to censor content:
Twitter’s decision to bow to Germany’s desire to block a specific [neo-Nazi group's] account is troubling for a number of reasons. Although it is nice that Twitter can allow the rest of the world to see the tweets in question, rather than blocking it entirely, this is a little like Google selectively blocking access to the offensive anti-Muslim video "The Innocence of Muslims" from Egypt and Libya. Do people in those countries not deserve to see content that everyone else can see? Are we prepared to sacrifice their free-speech rights (assuming we think they have any) to protect the interests of a specific company?
What if the government of Iran asked Twitter to block accounts that post photos of scantily-clad women because they are against the law? Would that be acceptable? Twitter has said that it will make its own judgments in such cases, as Google does — but what recourse do we have if they decide to do something we disagree with? More than anything, these kinds of cases reinforce how much influence private entities like Twitter and Google now have over what information we receive (or are able to distribute), and the responsibility that this power imposes on them.
(Image: How @hannoverticker, the first ever censored Twitter account, looks when viewed from the US and from Germany.)
The Dish 