Twitter Is Banned In Japan
Nelson Suggs
Censorship of X, commonly referred to by its former name Twitter, refers to Internet censorship by governments that block access to X. X censorship also includes governmental notice and take down requests to X, which it enforces in accordance with its Terms of Service when a government or authority submits a valid removal request to X indicating that specific content (such as a post (formerly tweet)) is illegal in their jurisdiction.
Twitter acts on complaints by third parties, including governments, to remove illegal content in accordance with the laws of the countries in which people use the service. On processing a successful complaint about an illegal tweet from "government officials, companies or another outside party", the social networking site will notify users from that country that they may not see it.[1]
During the curfew in Jammu and Kashmir after Indian revocation of Jammu and Kashmir's special status on 5 August 2019, the Indian government approached Twitter to suspend accounts which were spreading rumours and anti-India content.[6] This included the Twitter account of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, a Kashmiri separatist leader.[7] On 3 August 2019, Geelani tweeted "India is about to launch the biggest genocide in the history of mankind",[8] leading which, his account was suspended on request by authorities. Two days later, on August 5, the Indian parliament passed resolution to bifurcate the Jammu and Kashmir state into two union territories.
In February 2021, Twitter blocked hundreds of accounts that were posting about the Indian farmers protest from being accessed by users in India, by request of the Ministry of Home Affairs; the government ministry alleged that the accounts were spreading misinformation.[9][10][11] Later that month, Twitter became subject to the national Social Media Ethics Code, which expects all social media companies operating in the country to remove content by request of the government within 36 hours, and appoint a local representative who is an Indian resident and passport holder[12]
On May 18, 2021, Bharatiya Janata Party national spokesperson Sambit Patra posted an image alleged to be from an internal Indian National Congress (INC) document, detailing a social media campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi to criticize his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The INC disputed the posts and claimed that they were fabricated. Twitter subsequently marked the post as containing manipulated media.[13][14] The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology issued a request for Twitter to remove the label, alleging that Twitter's decision was "prejudged, prejudiced, and a deliberate attempt to colour the investigation by the local law enforcement agency".[13] After Twitter refused to remove the label, its offices in New Delhi were raided by police.[15]
In June 2021, Twitter lost its immunity as an "intermediary" under the Information Technology Act for its failure to appoint a local representative. It will be considered publisher of all materials posted on the platform.[16][17] Later the same month, police in Uttar Pradesh registered a case against Twitter accusing it of distribution of child pornography.[18] In March 2022, Delhi High Court questioned Twitter on why it would not block users posting objectionable content about Hindu Gods in the same way they blocked US President Donald Trump. The court sought a detailed explanation of Twitter's policies and asked them to file an affidavit.[19]
In July 2022, Twitter started a lawsuit against the government of India after being ordered to remove multiple accounts and tweets that violated India's laws. Twitter is arguing that the laws are too restrictive and challenging the orders to block content. The company stated that some of the blocking demands "pertain to political content that is posted by official handles of political parties" and said that such orders are "a violation of the freedom of speech".[20]
In 2016, access to comments by the American blogger Richard Silverstein about a criminal investigation, which involved a minor and therefore was under a gag order according to Israeli law, was blocked to Israeli IP addresses, following a request by Israel's Ministry of Justice.[24][25]
In February 2024, Twitter was censored by state authorities due to elections, depriving citizens of their basic right to access information. The Pakistan government blocked access to the social media platform around the time of the 2024 February elections, citing national security concerns. Despite the government's stance, both the government and the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) refused to comment on the outages, which were widely reported by internet watchdog groups.
Activists challenging the ban argue that it was designed to suppress dissent following the February 8 general elections, which were marred by widespread claims of vote rigging and subsequent protests. Authorities had also shut down mobile services on the day of the elections, again citing security concerns. NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group, reported that users were unable to access X on 10th February while the country was awaiting the election results.[26]
In April 2024, the Sindh High Court ordered the government to restore access to the platform within one week, according to a report by the AFP news agency, citing lawyer Moiz Jaaferi, who had launched a separate challenge against the ban.[27] Despite this order, access to X has been sporadic, with availability fluctuating based on the internet service provider, forcing users to rely on virtual private networks (VPNs), as noted by Alp Toker of NetBlocks.[28]
Similarly, on November 25, 2017, the NetBlocks internet shutdown observatory and Digital Rights Foundation collected evidence of nation-wide blocking of Twitter alongside other social media services, imposed by the government in response to the religious political party Tehreek-e-Labaik protests.[34][35][36] The technical investigation found that all major Pakistani fixed-line and mobile service providers were affected by the restrictions, which were lifted by the PTA the next day when protests abated following the resignation of Minister for Law and Justice Zahid Hamid.[37]
On May 19, 2014, Twitter blocked a pro-Ukrainian political account for Russian users. It happened soon after a Russian official had threatened to ban Twitter entirely if it refused to delete "tweets" that violated Russian law, according to the Russian news site Izvestia.[38]
On March 10, 2021, Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media began throttling Twitter on all mobile devices and 50% of computers due to claims that Twitter regulatory board failed to remove illegal content that includes suicide, child pornography, and drug use. They issued Twitter could be blocked in Russia if it did not comply. In an e-mail statement Twitter stated it was "deeply concerned to throttle online public conversation."[40][41][42]
On April 2, 2021, a Russian court found Twitter guilty on three counts of "violating regulations on restricting unlawful content," and ordered Twitter to pay $117,000 in fines.[46][47][48] On April 5, 2021, Russia extended its throttling of Twitter until May 15, 2021. On May 17, 2021, Roskomnadzor said that Twitter had removed 91% of the banned content and backed off on blocking Twitter. Barring 600 posts still pending removal, the government agency also said they would continue throttling Twitter on Mobile Devices only saying that Twitter needed to remove all the banned items and in the future delete reportedly illegal posts within 24 hours for all restrictions to be lifted.[49]
In August 2010, the Government of South Korea tried to block certain content on Twitter due to the North Korean government opening a Twitter account.[50] The North Korean Twitter account created on August 12, uriminzok, loosely translated to mean "our people" in Korean, acquired over 4,500 followers in less than one week. On August 19, 2010, South Korea's state-run Communications Standards Commission banned the Twitter account for broadcasting "illegal information."[51] According to BBC US and Canada, experts claim that North Korea has invested in "information technology for more than 20 years" with knowledge of how to use social networking sites.[52] This appears to be "nothing new" for North Korea as the reclusive country has always published propaganda in its press, usually against South Korea, calling them "warmongers."[52] With only 36 "tweets", the Twitter account was able to accumulate almost 9,000 followers. To date, the South Korean Commission has banned 65 sites, including this Twitter account.[51]
On October 29, 2020, the ISPs in Tanzania blocked social media in their country during election week.[53][54][55] Other social media sites have been unblocked since then, but Twitter remains blocked across all ISPs.
On April 20, 2014, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, FAZ, reported Twitter had blocked two regime hostile accounts in Turkey, @Bascalan and @Haramzadeler333, both known for pointing out corruption.[56] In fact, on March 26, 2014, Twitter announced that it started to use its Country Withheld Content tool for the first time in Turkey.[57] As of June 2014, Twitter was withholding 14 accounts and "hundreds of tweets" in Turkey.[58]
Twitter images were temporarily[citation needed] blocked in Venezuela in February 2014,[64] along with other sites used to share images, including Pastebin.com and Zello, a walkie-talkie app.[65] In response to the block, Twitter offered Venezuelan users a workaround to use their accounts via text message on their mobile phones.[66]
On February 27, 2019, internet monitoring group NetBlocks reported the blocking of Twitter by state-run Internet provider CANTV for a duration of 40 minutes.[67][68] The disruption followed the sharing of a tweet made by opposition leader Juan Guaid linking to a highly critical recording posted to SoundCloud, which was also restricted access during the incident. The outages were found to be consistent with a pattern of brief, targeted filtering of other social platforms established during the country's presidential crisis.[69]
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