Twitter Sees Jump in Govt Demands To Remove Content of Reporters, News Outlets

Twitter saw a surge in government demands worldwide in 2020 to take down content posted by journalists and news outlets, according to data released by the social media platform. From a report: In its transparency report published on Wednesday, Twitter said verified accounts of 199 journalists and news outlets on its platform faced 361 legal demands from governments to remove content in the second half of 2020, up 26% from the first half of the year. The biannual report on Twitter's enforcement of policy rules and the information and removal requests it receives comes as social media companies including Facebook and Alphabet's YouTube face government scrutiny worldwide over the content allowed on their platforms. Twitter ultimately removed five tweets from journalists and news publishers, the report said. India submitted most of the removal requests, followed by Turkey, Pakistan and Russia.

Doesn't seem unusual

[fustakrakich]

Mass media ultimately becomes a mouthpiece for the strongest authority in the region. Turns out the internet is no better off than the old radio/TV broadcasters, too easy to track and shut down the transmitter.

Freedom to delete.

[Ostracus]

India submitted most of the removal requests, followed by Turkey, Pakistan and Russia.

All bastions of freedom. /s

Re:

[GrumpySteen]

"India submitted most of the removal requests, followed by Turkey, Pakistan and Russia."

You do realize the first amendment is a US thing and doesn't apply to the rest of the world, right?

Maybe next time you should try reading the summary before you post and make a fool of yourself.

Re:Is Twitter now a state agent?

[Archangel Michael]

You are correct, that the 1st Amendment is a US thing. It is something the US should be supporting, but we know that Twitter doesn't care about the 1st Amendment at all.

But it should. It is based on free communication as a right. But instead, it has bowed before authoritarian governments (India, Turkey, Pakistan, and Russia) and other tyrannical personalities. These two things are in conflict with each other. They OUGHT to figure out that you can't be a free (Libre) and Open (availability) platform and have anything to do with restrictive regimes. Increasingly they are moving down the "in league with not so nice regimes". Worse, there are plenty of people who are supporting that tendency.

Re:

[tomkost]

What you described is what "should" be the case. e.g., the ideal. Instead these countries have made it a requirement to have local offices with people in them. If they just refuse to take the content down, the Indian government just arrests the folks in the local office. So the only real option is for Twitter etc, to completely leave those countries. They prefer to take down content and get revenue. Sad but true. I wish they would not submit and leave those countries, but I doubt they are going to do

Re:

[shanen]

On-target reply, but the first comment was so shallow that I don't know why it isn't FP and modded insightful, to boot. Seems pointless to try an clarify the muddle, but...

The use of the term "First Amendment" is muddling the issue. The idea is good, but it mostly has the number "First" by local accident in America. The funny part is that each 'modern' government (even including the most oppressive governments), has some kind of "freedom of speech" clause in the relevant government charter. The US is actual

Not relevant, question is Twitter as state agent

[SuperKendall]

You do realize the first amendment is a US thing and doesn't apply to the rest of the world, right?

Why does that matter to the issue at question - Twitter being a state agent.

It's a pretty good question actually, if Twitter is only allowing views that other state governments find agreeable, like for instance deleting all references to Uyghur muslims in China - then how is Twitter not an agent promoting views of other governments?

I am not sure what the repercussions of that might be, but proclaiming Twitter

It sure would be easier

[RightwingNutjob]

to tell foreign censors what to do with themselves if they had a sacrosanct policy of not engaging in any kind of digital book burning at all.

When this comment inevitably gets modded down, a modicum of introspection would be nice to hope for: is the above statement code for the right to sell covid healing crystals and call people nasty words, is it just what it is at face value, or is it some combination of both with the clear eyed understanding that the bad is outweighed by the good in the long run?

Censoring New York Post created precedent

[sinij]

When Twitter censored The New York Post reporting [nypost.com] for the sole benefit of one political party they created a precedent where such actions could be demanded from them by others.

Of course they do

[argStyopa]

...when they've demonstrated the willingness to take political sides, it seems logical that anyone with an axe to grind is going to see if they can "justify" having Twitter block whomever they don't like.

https://thehill.com/opinion/te... [thehill.com]

https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]

Maybe not just censorship

[Lije Baley]

Most of today's news is so "not news" that anyone with even modest critical thinking would want to have it taken down. So much is just terribly written clickbait that draws you in just to
at best parrot a story told by someone else, without doing any research or putting it in perspective. One all too common example is a headline with a statistic involving a large number of something, which in the article is not ever compared to what the normal number of that thing is. The best we ever get now is to

Re:

[beepsky]

Worse. Most news these days (at least in the West) is designed specifically to make people angry so they'll rant about it online and get more exposure and clicks.