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The Twitter homepage appears on a screen (file photo). (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/GettyImages)
Twitter announced Thursday that it would block access to a neo-Nazi group’s account at the behest of the German government.
Tweets from the group, Besseres Hannover, will not be accessible in Germany, but the rest of the world can see them, Twitter spokesman Dirk Hensen told The Associated Press.
Alex Macgillivray, Twitter’s chief attorney, said that the company “never want[s] to withhold content,” but posted a link to a letter sent by German police who requested that Besseres Hannover’s account be closed. He added that it is “good to have tools to do it narrowly and transparently,” referring to closing the account.
“I ask you to close this account immediately and not to open any substitute accounts for the organization ‘Besseres Hannover,’” the Lower-Saxony police letter reads, which was posted on the Chilling Effects website.
“The enclosed letter gives you the information that the Ministry of the Interior of the State of Lower-Saxony in Germany has banned the organization ‘Besseres Hannover,’” it reads. “It is disbanded, its assets are seized, and all its accounts in social networks have to be closed immediately.”
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