Google and Twitter have been under great pressure to censor content on their platforms from several countries.  Twitter has been blamed for stoking revolutionary and protest uprisings around the world, assuredly sparking concerns in all leaders who seek to hold onto power.  Meanwhile, Google has already succumbed to censorship demands in China, as well as individual YouTube removal requests from various nations.

Most recently, in America, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, Senator Joe Lieberman, sent a letter to Google requesting that they censor violent content on their Blogger platform. Lieberman also made a similar request to Twitter, that they deactivate accounts that tweet anti-West content.

Although Lieberman’s requests have yet to be fulfilled, Google and Twitter have both recently announced their willingness to remove content based on censorship laws in individual nations.

Google announced that its Blogger platform will now be accessed at different ‘country-specific URLs’.  ”For example, if you’re in Australia and viewing [blogname].blogspot.com, you might be redirected [blogname].blogspot.com.au,” Google wrote on their blog.

Google said the change in the blogspot addresses will provide “greater flexibility in complying with valid removal requests pursuant to local law,” adding that “By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers.

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