Twitter Improves DMCA Policy: Alerts Public To 'Removed' Tweets

from the a-step-up dept

For years, we've criticized Twitter's DMCA policy, in which it completely disappears tweets that are subject to DMCA takedown notices it receives. The company, as part of its transparency campaign, has now changed its policy slightly, such that it will now replace the taken down tweet with one that indicates the tweet was removed due to a DMCA notice. While security researcher Mikko Hypponen has a tweet showing the text that Twitter is replacing tweets with, it quickly became clear that his tweet was a "joke" to show that it's easy to simply copy the general text that Twitter will be using:
This Tweet from @username has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder. Learn more.
The "replaced" tweets now link to this page with an explanation of Twitter's new DMCA policy. While that policy notes, thankfully, that it also sends all DMCA notices to Chilling Effects, it would be even cooler if the tweets in question linked to the Chilling Effects entry with the DMCA notice in question, so people could understand who removed the tweet and why. There may be some issues with the timing on that, but right now it leaves open a lot of questions about why certain tweets were removed. And, given that it's somewhat easy to "fake" the new tweets (even though faked ones won't have the "learn more" phrase linked), I wonder if these will have the same impact.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: dmca, takedowns
Companies: twitter


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread



Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.