Twitter Blocks German Neo-Nazis’ Account
Twitter has blocked messages in Germany from a group banned by local authorities over right-wing extremism, using its powers to withhold content in one specific country for the first time.
“The account and all its content have been blocked for Germany, the content remains visible to Twitter users in other countries,” a spokesman for Twitter said.
Twitter announced plans for its so-called “Country Withheld Content” function earlier this year, which allows it to remove illegal content for one specific country, saying it believed that keeping messages up in other places would serve freedom of expression, transparency and accountability.
The spokesman said the move to block messages from the German group – which calls itself Besseres Hannover, which means “a better Hanover” – came at the request of police in the northern German city of Hanover.
Alex MacGillivray, Twitter’s General Counsel tweeted “Never want to withhold content; good to have tools to do it narrowly & transparently,” and linked to a copy of the police letter.
Public prosecutors searched the homes of more than 20 suspected members of the group last month who are accused of forming a criminal organisation with the intention of committing crimes. According to Hanover police, the group was banned on Sept. 25 and ordered to halt all its activities.
Hanover Police President Axel Brockmann said in a statement last month he had pledged when taking office “to crush this group of neo-Nazi and far-right activists wherever it appeared”.
“This horror is at an end,” said Uwe Schuenemann, the Interior Minister of the local state Lower Saxony, when he announced the ban.
Police said the group had 40 members and had recently distributed copies of its far-right magazine at schools.
Authorities and residents across Germany have become more sensitive to the threat of far-right militants since revelations last year that a neo-Nazi cell waged a seven-year racist killing spree through the country, murdering nine people, mostly of Turkish origin.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
