TMCnet Feature

Brazil just filed an injunction hoping to stop Twitter users to supposedly alert drivers about any police activity, including roadblocks, drunk driving checkpoints, and radar traps. This would effectively make Brazil the first country to request Twitter (News - Alert) directly to censor some parts of its posts. The social networking company recently changed its policy to allow governments to request censorship on some or all of its posts. Its justification: Some of the posts might break local legislation.

Eva Galperin from the Electronic Frontier Foundation said, “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.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation poses as an organization for digital liberties. Galperin says she saw this coming, particularly the attempts from governments to take advantage of the policy to censor some or all traffic from Twitter. “Twitter has given these countries the tool and now Brazil has chosen to use it,” said Galperin.

One of the spokesmen for the Brazilian federal prosecutor's office, Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues Alves, said that Brazil's injunction came by on Monday. He added that the judge will make a quick decision, perhaps within the next few days, on the injunction against Twitter's community. Brazil's attorney general's office said that Twitter's users often send alerts to each other regarding police activity.

The police operations alerts are making it difficult to reduce accidents and grand theft, as well as drug and weapons smuggling. In a statement, the attorney general's office said, “We can also see that traffic accidents in Brazil account for 55,000 deaths yearly, totaling to a cost upwards of $14 billion. The statement also says that if the injunction passes, anyone who is found violating the injunction is going to face a fine just below $300,000.”

When asked about the situation, Twitter said that there's “nothing to share on this issue.”