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Sao Paulo- A request for an injunction to stop Twitter users from alerting drivers to police roadblocks, radar traps and drunk-driving checkpoints could make Brazil the first country to take Twitter up on its plan to censor content at governments’ requests.

Twitter unveiled plans last month that would allow country-specific censorship of Tweets that might break local laws.

“As far as we know this is the first time that a country has attempted to take Twitter up on their country-by-country take- down,” Eva Galperin of the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation said õn Thursday.

Galperin, who described the foundation as “a digital liberties organisation,” predicted that other governments will take similar opportunities to censor Twitter traffic.

Carlos Eduardo Rodrigues Alves, a spokesman for the Brazilian federal prosecutor’s office, said the injunction request had been filed on Monday. He said a judge was expected to announce in the next few days whether he would issue the order against Twitter users.

The attorney general’s office said tweeted alerts about police operations jeopardised efforts to reduce traffic accidents and curb motor thefts and the transportation of drugs and weapons.

If the judge rules in favour of the injunction, anyone who violates it could be hit with a daily fine of 500 000 reals (R2.2 million).

Under Twitter’s new policy, a Tweet breaking a law in one country can be taken down there at a government’s request. But it adds that censored Tweets will still be seen elsewhere. – Sapa-AP