- Alexandria Hicks,
Senior communication major
HANNOVER – Twitter has blocked a user account for the first time, responding to a request made by German authorities. The company adopted a policy earlier this year allowing it to block accounts in countries where the account violates national laws.
The handle @hannoverticker, belonging to neo-Nazi group Better Hanover, was banned in Germany as of Sept. 25. Any content posted since then will not be visible to users across the country. This is the first time Twitter has used its ability to censor content on its website.
Alex Macgillivray, a Twitter representative tweeted about the decision last week: "We announced the ability to withhold content back in January. We're using it now for the first time.” Fostering hate against people for racial reasons and promoting the overthrow of democracy is illegal in Germany, and it has been since the Nazi regime fell. These laws are strictly enforced by authorities throughout the country.
Twitter representatives said the policy of banning users only in certain countries is an effort to balance user expression with the various laws around the world. Twitter is able to respect the wishes of German police while avoiding blocking Better Hanover globally.
Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman had this to say on the matter, "When free expression crosses the line into speech that society recognizes as an affront to individuals' human dignity and as thinly veiled calls for violence, then the service provider has a responsibility to establish acceptable boundaries."
Despite the company’s efforts to satisfy everyone, there have been many concerns raised about the constraints on free speech associated with Twitter’s policy. Upon hearing the news of the Twitter ban, some were alarmed. Roseann Patterson, a former Chicago Public School teacher, could not believe there was not a bigger uproar about it. “I understand that other countries do not place the same emphasis on free speech as the United States, but as an American company, Twitter should hold its ground on this issue. This could be the beginning of a slippery slope of censorship. Who’s to say Twitter won’t start applying this policy to accounts in the U.S.?,” Patterson said.
Alexandria Hicks, a senior communication major, expressed a similar fear. “I feel like Twitter could start stretching the limits of this practice. "There’s nothing stopping them from saying that any account violates a law somehow. This is a blatant violation of free speech and it worries me for the future,” Hicks said.
There are those, however, who think Twitter is doing the right thing. Breana Winters, a junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said she thinks Twitter is doing the best it can. “Twitter has to consider its own interests first. If it doesn’t respect the wishes of German authorities, there could be consequences. I think allowing the tweets to be seen everywhere except Germany shows that the company is trying to walk a thin line between the law and freedom of expression,” Winters said.
Better Hannover has been disbanded and its assets have been seized. An investigation has been launched on “suspicion of forming a criminal association,” according to a letter sent to Twitter from the police in Hannover.
As of last Thursday, Better Hannover had around 600 followers, mostly in America. As a growing company, Twitter will most likely be forced to deal with issues of free speech and censorship more often in the future. Its response to situations like this one will play a large role in how the Internet is policed.