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President Donald Trump has become embroiled in a spat with Twitter TWTR, -3.28%, but it’s not the first time a world leader has taken drastic action against the social media platform.
Trump issued an executive order on Thursday intended to strip legal protections provided to social media companies. Tensions escalated on Friday when Twitter hid a tweet from Trump that included “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” in reference to the Minneapolis protests over the fatal arrest of an unarmed black man. The company said the tweet violated the platform’s rules by glorifying violence. The President hit back accusing the company of “doing nothing about all of the lies and propaganda being put out by China.”
There’s certainly more to come from the president’s spat with Twitter, but while it is unlikely the platform will be banned in the U.S., a number of countries have taken that path.
China
Twitter is blocked in China and has been since 2009. The block was initially implemented after riots in the northwest region of Xinjiang amid tensions between Uyghur Muslims and Chinese authorities.
However, recently Chinese companies, along with government ministers, officials and diplomats, have started using the platform.
Twitter also turned its attention to China on Thursday, adding fact-checking warnings to tweets by Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao. The social media company added the fact-check notice to a tweet Zhao sent in March, which said “it might be [the] U.S. army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.” The fact-check link sends users to articles in which the World Health Organization says evidence suggests the virus originated in animals.
Iran
Iran also blocked its citizens from accessing the social media platform in 2009 after the controversial and disputed Iranian presidential election amid fears the site was being used to organize protests. Despite the blackout, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has his own English language Twitter account.
North Korea
Internet access is hard to come by in North Korea, with those lucky enough to be able to log on restricted to the government-approved Kwangmyong intranet network. The country formally blocked Twitter, along with YouTube and Facebook FB, -0.23% , in 2016. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications warned that people trying to hack onto the banned sites would be subject to punishment.
Several countries, including Turkey and the U.A.E., have temporarily banned Twitter. The platform was mysteriously blocked in Egypt in 2011 during mass protests over a range of issues, including police brutality, state-of-emergency laws, civil liberty and corruption.
