German-based users see neo-Nazi Twitter account blocked

Twitter has set up a block for a neo-Nazi account, preventing access to all and sundry. This particular block was put in place at the request of the German government. Basically, in plain English, this means that tweets on that neo-Nazi account will no longer be visible to users in Germany, but folks living outside of Germany can still take a gander at what is being tweeted. This move would mark the first time that Twitter implemented its local censorship policy that came into force not too long ago – in January this year, in fact. The policy will enable Twitter to block content in specific countries if tweets violate local laws.

Twitter’s general counsel Alex Macgillivray said, “Never want to withhold content; good to have tools to do it narrowly and transparently.” No idea on whether the neo-Nazi group also started a Facebook pace, but a Twitter spokesman said, “We work with anti-Nazi organisations and would encourage anyone who finds content like this to report it to Facebook.” All we can say is, the world does not need any more hate speech than there already is.