Thailand Welcomes Twitter Censorship Policy

Thailand Welcomes Twitter Censorship Policy

Thailand today welcomed Twitter's controversial new censorship policy.

Thai Information and Communication Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap told AFP: "It's a good idea that Twitter has this policy to take care and prevent its users from violating the law, because freedom of expression must not violate other people's rights or the laws in each country."

The statement comes after the social networking media site used by millions across the world, announced it would begin to restrict its tweets.

In a blog titled "Tweets still must flow" , Twitter last week announced that it may need to withold tweets in certain countries as it begins global expansion plans.

"Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available in the rest of the world," Twitter said in a post on 27 January.

If a tweet is restricted, a grey box will pop up on the feed: "Tweet withheld,"it would read "This tweet from @username has been withheld in: Country."

Censorship laws in Thailand are some of the toughest in the world, the Guardian reported, with insulting or threatening comments about the royal family punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

In November the country asked Facebook to delete more than 10,000 pages of content deemed offensive to the monarchy.

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