Twitter drawn into censorship row

A Twitter blog, in which the company announced it has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis (AP, Twitter)

Published: 5:26am, 27th January 2012
Updated: 12:08am, 31st January 2012

Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis.

The additional flexibility is likely to raise fears that Twitter's commitment to free speech may be weakening.

It comes as the short-messaging company expands into new countries in an attempt to broaden its audience and make more money.

But Twitter sees the censorship tool as a way to ensure individual messages, or "tweets", remain available to as many people as possible while it navigates a maze of different laws around the world.

Before, when Twitter erased a tweet it disappeared throughout the world. Now, a tweets containing content breaking a law in one country can be taken down there and still be seen elsewhere.

Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed.