Twitter has banned a neo-Nazi account in Germany on the request of local law enforcement. It's the first time Twitter's ever done so: The micro-blog has had the ability to block accounts in single countries since January, but has not used the capability until this week.
The account in question, @hannoverticker, belongs to a neo-Nazi group operating in Germany called Besseres Hannover. The group has been watched for criminal behavior by local authorities since 2008, because Nazi imagery and propaganda is banned in German law.
Basseres Hannover was formally banned by law enforcement in late September. That's when local authorities asked Twitter to block the groups' account in Germany as part of a wider effort to disrupt the group's online organization (the group's website is also apparently down).
"It is disbanded, its assets are seized and all its accounts in social networks have to be closed immediately," reads a letter sent to Twitter.
Late Wednesday night, Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray tweeted that the account had been blocked in Germany:
Never want to withhold content; good to have tools to do it narrowly & transparently chillingeffects.org/notice.cgi?sID…. More info support.twitter.com/articles/20169…— Alex Macgillivray (@amac) October 18, 2012
We announced the ability to withhold content back in Jan. We're using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany.— Alex Macgillivray (@amac) October 18, 2012
The account remains accessible from outside Germany, and it has yet to tweet anything in regards to the ban. This was its most recent tweet:
Look at this regime: They gossip viciously about china and russia but noone about them! freedom for #germany! #censorship #injustice #brd— besseres-hannover (@hannoverticker) October 18, 2012
Twitter came under fire by free speech advocates when it introduced the content withholding feature earlier this year. However, the company maintains it's necessary to comply with local law, and Twitter puts all account blocking requests received by governments and law enforcement agencies on a web portal called Chilling Effects. The company also began issuing Transparency Reports this year.