In January Twitter announced changes in its censorship policy. The move was met with strong opposition from users. Critics were quick to declare that the new policy was against free speech and sought to please anti-transparency bureaucracies and autocratic governments by suppressing the voice of opponents. But the uproar may have been unnecessary.
The platform has always been responsible for the removal of unlawful content. According to the new policy, the offensive tweets will not appear within the limits of the affronted nation. The change is unlikely to affect a majority of Twitter users. It will only affect those, who are afraid of government intervention. Even these users can evade Twitter censorship with some simple strategies.
• Be careful with words. Instead of direct references to controversial personalities, you can refer to them indirectly, for instance, ‘the 4th Egyptian president’. This can help you dodge detection.
• The censorship of your content is based on your ‘country’ setting. Changing this setting is the easiest way to evade censorship.
• A major loophole is that the policy is applicable only to the original content. This means that censored material can be displayed in re-tweeted posts.