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Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

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Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but when it comes down to "Censor stuff when asked" or "Don't bother setting up shop at all", any rational person would take option #1. So let's see, you're Google, and you want to set up your search engine in China. "Not so fast" says the local big cheeses. "You have to censor search results in compliance with laws X Y and Z. If you do not, your employees will be jailed and you will be shut down." As a Chinese c…

But in actuality Google decided B was a mistake, and has switched to A: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/23/google-chin...

Yes, but it is worse off because of it.

Also it was already getting trounced by competition (Baidu).

Google in china was like Bing is in the west. The search engine you know, but never use. :P

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh, I would have written Google Freedom A 0 1 B 1 -1 C -1 1

How does a new search engine complying with existing laws impact "freedom" (a nebulous concept) in any meaningful way?

Because US propaganda has got it into peoples heads that "Free-Speech"* = "Freedom"+

Glasshouses, stones, kettles and pots are all coming to mind :P

* Where free speech, is "Free" by US law. And not anything that is critical of the US govt institution (ala Bradley Manning)

+ Where freedom is the same brand of Freedom™ that the US promotes/enjoys(?)

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh, I would have written Google Freedom A 0 1 B 1 -1 C -1 1

How does a new search engine complying with existing laws impact "freedom" (a nebulous concept) in any meaningful way?

How does equating rationality with profit-maximization further this discussion in any meaningful way?

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#35
post #26

I'm going to guess this is more about Germany than it is about China In Germany, Nazi propaganda is illegal. This leaves Twitter with three options when dealing with a user who posts Nazi propaganda: 1. Leave it up, in violation of German law. 2. Delete the user's tweet, even though it is legal in most countries (and blocking it is a violation of the principle of free speech) 3. Block it only in Germany, and make it…

Yes. At Last.fm, Germany was the first country we had to censor our content in.

If you try and view content which is deemed inappropriate by the German government (fun fact: even the list of inappropriate content is restricted), you get something which looks like this:

http://www.lastfm.de/music/Landser

I believe these pages are still available if you try and visit the English last.fm site from Germany.

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a new search engine complying with existing laws impact "freedom" (a nebulous concept) in any meaningful way?

Because US propaganda has got it into peoples heads that "Free-Speech"* = "Freedom"+ Glasshouses, stones, kettles and pots are all coming to mind :P * Where free speech, is "Free" by US law. And not anything that is critical of the US govt institution (ala Bradley Manning) + Where freedom is the same brand of Freedom™ that the US promotes/enjoys(?)

> And not anything that is critical of the US govt institution (ala Bradley Manning)

Pretty sure free speech does not, has not, and never has or will apply to military secrets that one takes an oath to keep when they join the military.

Let's get one thing straight. Manning is a hero in my book.. but there is no question what so ever that he broke the law (and his oath). The debate comes in to what we do with him because of what he did.

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#37

So does this mean they'll only censor them in a certain country when that country's government asks them to do it, or also when the US Government asks them to censor them in that country?

A country can only ask Twitter to censor the information in that country. For example, if Germany doesn't want the German people see pro-Nazi content, they can ask Twitter to censor it in that country. Twitter will then report it in to http://www.chillingeffects.org/.

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but when it comes down to "Censor stuff when asked" or "Don't bother setting up shop at all", any rational person would take option #1. So let's see, you're Google, and you want to set up your search engine in China. "Not so fast" says the local big cheeses. "You have to censor search results in compliance with laws X Y and Z. If you do not, your employees will be jailed and you will be shut down." As a Chinese c…

But in actuality Google decided B was a mistake, and has switched to A: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/mar/23/google-chin...

Actually Google decided A was a mistake, and has switched to C: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-24/google-china-busine...

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but when it comes down to "Censor stuff when asked" or "Don't bother setting up shop at all", any rational person would take option #1. So let's see, you're Google, and you want to set up your search engine in China. "Not so fast" says the local big cheeses. "You have to censor search results in compliance with laws X Y and Z. If you do not, your employees will be jailed and you will be shut down." As a Chinese c…

Option D: Google opens their Chinese office outside of PRC, and embraces circumvention technology. This is the Internet , you don't have to open a physical office in every market. Censoring services for the whims of every government just dilutes your brand.

This is a corporation. For one, it's incredibly inefficient to set up infrastructure outside of where you're operating. For two, how hard do you think it would be for the great firewall to just block whatever IP's they operate from?

Google.cn being accessible from tor might be a neat idea in theory, but it's infeasible (and just a little bit silly) from a real world perspective where you have to account for your cash and actions.

Re: Twitter Will Censor Certain Tweets In Certain Countries

#40
post #7

They can't even block the most idiotic kind of spam[1], and now they will get this magic NLP working? Ha. [1] @reply tweets from newly created accounts.

I don't follow. Could you point to where it mentioned NLP in the article?

It's not on the article, I implied it because I thought they were going to censor content automatically.
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