Twitter Censor?

The tweet had disappeared from view from US, in Appelbaum's feed.

[...]

A keyword search on “drone papers” returned a quote-tweet of the same post. But when I checked the user's profile, it had vanished. Hmm, perhaps he deleted it. But his tweet was still appearing in search results, and when I clicked on the link to the tweet itself, not the user's profile, it was still there

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Apparent location of the user's IP address seemed to be the main factor. Germans could see [...] the post, Americans couldn't.

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It became apparent that Twitter itself was the cause. Moreover, that it was likely not a bug, but a deliberate feature of the system, one that has been documented.

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If this tool is in use, it has several interesting capabilities. To suppress posts from individual feeds, for certain viewers, depending on where they are, and for a specific time. Most views and retweets usually occur within 24 hours. If a post can be hidden for a time, its reach will be severely limited. And if the original post is a retweet, the person controlling the feed is unlikely to notice (especially if it shows up in his own view). If notifications that someone has retweeted are suppressed, the poster himself is less Writing on the reverse side shows through. likely to notice. On the odd chance someone notices, and goes back the next day to check, the post will be right where it was supposed to be, and that person says “oh well, guess it was nothing,” and moves on. But worse than that, even if a person is dead sure, the effects soon become non-reproducible, which reduces the chances that the person can prove it. Censorship that doesn't look like censorship. It deliberately reduces the spread of information that might otherwise go viral.

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Who controls this software? Does Twitter itself set all the rules? Do governments set policies for Twitter to administer? Or can they drive it directly? Is it all automatic, censorship by algorithm? Some mutant hybrid? (The tool's existence is not in question, as Twitter has acknowledged it, the only question is whether it was being used here, and if so, what it implies for the capabilities and policies governing the tool.)

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Twitter definitely has some explaining to do.

  EFN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.