Brazil files injunction request against Twitter
Last month, Twitter unveiled plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.
“As far as we know this is the first time that a country has attempted to take Twitter up on their country-by-country take down,” said Eva Galperin of San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Galperin, who described the foundation as “a digital liberties organiszation”, predicted that governments will be taking similar opportunities to censor Twitter traffic.
“Twitter has given these countries the tool and now Brazil has chosen to use it,” she said.
Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues Alves, a spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, said the injunction request was filed Monday. He said a judge was expected to announce soon whether he will issue the order against Twitter users.
The attorney general’s office said that tweeted alerts about police operations jeopardise efforts to reduce traffic accidents, auto thefts and the transportation of drugs and weapons.
The attorney general’s office said traffic accidents kill 55,000 people in Brazil each year and cost the country 24.6 billion reals (€10.8bn).
If the judge rules in favour of the injunction, anyone who violates it could be hit with a daily fine of 500,000 reals (€219,500).
San Francisco-based Twitter Inc said it had “nothing to share on this issue.”
Under the new policy, a tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there at a government’s request. However, censored tweets will still be seen elsewhere.
Twitter has said it will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed and will post the removal requests it receives.
It said that it has no plans to remove tweets unless it receives a request from government officials, companies or another outside party that believes the message is illegal.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
