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A Twitter blackout aimed
at protesting censorship on the social media site is sweeping
the web as its proponents urge users to "go dark" Saturday.

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And it has since taken off, bringing users from all corners of
the social media site together in a coordinated effort to send
a message via boycott to Twitter that censorship will not be
tolerated by its users, and that anyone who opposes censorship
should boycott the site Saturday.

The blackout plan arose out of the Thursday announcement
on Twiter's blog that the social-media giant will implement
a policy under which it can censor Tweets on a
country-by-country basis:

"As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter
countries that have different ideas about the contours of
freedom of expression," the posting read. "Some differ so much
from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others
are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict
certain types of content, such as France or Germany,
which ban pro-Nazi content."

That aspect of the announcement was Twitter's way of prefacing
the censorship policy that has the Twittervers up in arms:

"Until now, the only way we could take account of those
countries' limits was to remove content globally. Starting
today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold
content from users in a specific country - while keeping it
available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way
to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld,
and why," Twitter continued. "We haven't yet used this ability,
but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a
specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we
will clearly mark when the content has been withheld."

The announcement seemed to many Twitter users who follow the
ongoing issue of protecting Internet freedom and First
Amendment rights to be nothing more than yet another step
toward the censorship of social media.

Twitter account @The99Percenters
announced in a
concise Tweet on Friday that it will be participating in
the Twitter blackout:
"#TwitterBlackout We
R protesting country by country Twitter censorship on 1-28-2012
I will be tweetless."

Twitter user @ItsSoDamien on Friday
Tweeted
his reason for joining the Twitter blackout in a dispatch
that resonates with many of its participants: "#TwitterBlackout Because
this is not what I signed in for."

The censorship announcement by Twitter comes on the heels of a
number of news reports revealing the extent to which the U.S.
government is getting involved in the social media site's
affairs.

In one of the most recent cases to emerge regarding Twitter
censorship, The New York
Times exposed on Dec. 19 that "some American
officials said the government was exploring legal options to
shut down the Shabab's new Twitter account," referring to
the @HSMPress account
supposedly run by Somalia's Shabab militant group.

A profile image created specifically for the Twitter
blackout event, featuring a jet-black background with the
Twitter bird mascot's eyes and beak poking through the
darkness, and the words "twitter blackout" in stark white, was
adopted Friday by many users planning to participate in the
protest.

Social media expert Jeff Jarvis called Twitter's new policy
part of "a slippery slope of censorship," according
to The Associated Press.

"I understand why Twitter is doing this--they want to be able
to enter more counties and deal with local laws. But, as Google
learned in China, when you become
the agent of the censor, there are problems there," he said.

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Twitter Blackout: Censorship Protest Urges Users to 'Go Dark' Saturday for #TwitterBlackout