Twitter’s commitment to transparency led it to introduce the tool Country Withheld Content or CWC in 2012 after launching its first Twitter Transparency Report. The tool is used for ‘transparently’ handling legal requests from around the world for removing content from the social platform.
CWC mainly aims at avoiding silent removals and maximizing the transparency of content that Twitter removes to remain compliant with court orders, local laws, and other legal demands.
Twitter’s efforts in effectively using the tool include ‘providing direct notice of removal requests to affected users (when not otherwise prohibited), the use of visual indicators within the service, and by publishing the underlying legal demands (e.g., court orders) on Lumen, which serves as a public repository for content removal requests.’ Lumen provides information on the scope and scale of government censorship worldwide.
The evolution of the CWC has led the social media update the in-product messaging that is shown to respective users when a content is withheld. From now onwards, the messaging will clarify the reason behind Twitter’s withholding of the content.
Twitter has further updated their CWC Help Center article and Legal Requests FAQ as per the changes. The entire move is a part of the continuing efforts of the company to achieve transparency in its platform.
You can expect more such changes in coming future, as hinted by Jeremy Kessel, the Global Legal Policy Director. Stay tuned to us as we bring more updates.
