Twitter has agreed to comply with censorship laws in Pakistan:
The blocking of these tweets in Pakistan — in line with the country-specific censorship policy Twitter unveiled in 2012 — is the first time the social network has agreed to withhold content there. A number of the accounts seemed to have been blocked in anticipation of the fourth annual “Everybody Draw Muhammad Day” on May 20.
This censorship comes as challenges to Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy law have become increasingly deadly, amid a flurry of arrests, killings and assassination attempts on secularists.
This week, a local edition of the International New York Times was printed in Pakistan with a large blank space instead of an Op-Ed article headlined “Pakistan’s Tyranny of Blasphemy.”
Twitter, which has trumpeted its commitment to free speech, argues that it is a lesser evil to block specific tweets that might violate local laws than to have the entire site blocked in certain countries.
Please, go ahead and pander to their bigotry – it’s not like that’s making things worse or anyth… ohh, wait!
