Twitter going forward will disclose to users whether blocked tweets were withheld as a result of court order or in compliance to local laws, which through what it calls Country Withheld Content (CWC), will notify the affected accounts.
While notices will be sent directly to affected accounts; Twitter will display new interstitial containing information about the blockade, so that users can know as soon as they try to access the blocked tweets or accounts.
The interstitial will link to information about Twitter’s policies, with similar messages also shown on account that has been blocked in its entirety.
Twitter claims that between January and June 2017, it has received about 14,120 removal requests, including court orders and requests from government agencies or police, while 9,337 had no action taken against them; 1,760 haven some content withheld and 3,023 had content completely removed for violating its terms of service.
The removal requests came from 46 countries, with the majority, over 70%, haven originated from France, Germany, Russia and Turkey.
Twitter also disclosed that it received eight legal requests to remove content from the verified accounts of journalists or media outlets, but did not take any action against them.
The company, however has come under heavy scrutiny over how it handles controversial content, and most especially concerning several tweets from the U.S. President’s personal account, @realDonaldTrump which critics believe violate its terms.
Social media in general have a lot of work to do in keeping their platforms free from abuse by unethical users whose sole aim is to spread misinformation.
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