Following the announcement last week from Twitter that they can now block specific Tweets on a per-country basis, Google have now announced a similar move with Blogger that allows specific blogs to be blocked for individual countries, while keeping them online and active in the rest of the world.
Google describes the move on their blog as happening because…
“Migrating to localized domains will allow us to continue promoting free expression and responsible publishing while providing greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law. By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD.”
This move comes just under a year after the beginning of the Arab Spring which began with the people taking to the streets of Egypt and protesting against the thirty year rule of President Hosni Mubarak in which social networks such as Twitter were used extensively. Similar uprisings quickly spread to neighbouring countries with Syria now the target of sanctions discussions at the United Nations.
It also follows Google’s discussions with China last year which saw the company temporarily withdraw from the country, only to return later having made concessions to the Chinese government. Currently the changes apply only to Australia, New Zealand and India though Google apparently plan to roll the new system out globally. It does not appear however that this has been introduced at the request of any specific country or countries.
The move would allow both Twitter and Google to block access to specific web content at the request of a country’s government or court-order. This could include specific words in the case of Twitter or the blogs of people who are seen as dissidents or criminals.
When Twitter announced their censorship move last week it was met with heavy criticism from freedom-of-speech campaigners, however the Blogger move is meeting so far with a more even response with the BBC reporting Joss Wright, a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute who told them “Google’s new approach to supporting country-level takedown requests in Blogger strikes a good balance between free speech, legality and practical issues for end users. By allowing per-country takedown requests, Google can meet local laws without blocking content at a global level.”
In a statement the company said…
“If you visit a blog that does not correspond to your current location as determined by your IP address, the blogspot servers will redirect you to the domain associated with your country.”
Google believe the move will allow them to comply with local laws while keeping the content online around the world. It is not yet clear however how this and the Twitter system might work with privacy browsers intended to bypass local filtering. These are used by dissidents and political activists in countries including China, Burma and North Korea.
In the past Google have blocked specific content from their search engine in China, and blocked other content such as Nazi-related websites in Germany where such things are illegal. Many people however believe that the Internet should not be filtered at all, and arguments are certain to continue over these moves.Via[Ghacks]
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