<p>Twitter on Thursday said it had blocked an account in a country for the first time, after German police asked the micro-blogging site to restrict access by a neo-Nazi group.<br /><br /></p>.<p>“We announced the ability to withhold content back in January,” Twitter’s chief lawyer Alex Macgillivray said in a message posted on the website.<br /><br />“We’re using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany.”<br /><br />In a separate tweet, Macgillivray posted a link to a letter from the police in the northern German state of Lower Saxony asking Twitter to block the account of Besseres Hannover, a far-right outfit which was outlawed last month.<br /><br />The account is still visible on Twitter with the handle @hannoverticker and calling itself “Das nationale Informationsportal aus Hannover” (The national information portal from Hanover).<br /><br /> But no message since the date of the ban, September 25, is visible in Germany, and the group’s website has also been blocked or deleted.<br /><br />Prosecutors in Lower Saxony have launched a probe against around 20 members of Besseres Hannover on charges of inciting racial hatred and creating a criminal organisation.<br /><br /> The group is in particular suspected of sending a threatening video to the state’s social affairs minister, Aygul Ozkan, who is of Turkish origin. Macgillivray said in a further post that Twitter aimed to restrict as little as possible on its website while complying with the law.</p>
<p>Twitter on Thursday said it had blocked an account in a country for the first time, after German police asked the micro-blogging site to restrict access by a neo-Nazi group.<br /><br /></p>.<p>“We announced the ability to withhold content back in January,” Twitter’s chief lawyer Alex Macgillivray said in a message posted on the website.<br /><br />“We’re using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany.”<br /><br />In a separate tweet, Macgillivray posted a link to a letter from the police in the northern German state of Lower Saxony asking Twitter to block the account of Besseres Hannover, a far-right outfit which was outlawed last month.<br /><br />The account is still visible on Twitter with the handle @hannoverticker and calling itself “Das nationale Informationsportal aus Hannover” (The national information portal from Hanover).<br /><br /> But no message since the date of the ban, September 25, is visible in Germany, and the group’s website has also been blocked or deleted.<br /><br />Prosecutors in Lower Saxony have launched a probe against around 20 members of Besseres Hannover on charges of inciting racial hatred and creating a criminal organisation.<br /><br /> The group is in particular suspected of sending a threatening video to the state’s social affairs minister, Aygul Ozkan, who is of Turkish origin. Macgillivray said in a further post that Twitter aimed to restrict as little as possible on its website while complying with the law.</p>