Twitter Incorporates in Ireland to Neutralize NSA and Save Advertisers

Twitter, the 140-character social media giant is re-incorporating in Ireland to evade the NSA from requesting user information and to help further protect advertisers.

Twitter has gone ahead and began segmenting Twitter users in order to evade NSA data requests. The move will be effective May 18th, when Twitter will split into two separate entities, one Twitter for US citizens, and another Twitter International Company for non-US citizens.

The current Twitter Inc. will continue to serve US citizens while their subsidiary, Twitter International Company, which is based out of Ireland will host and handle all non-US Twitter data. Twitter has chosen Ireland due to Ireland’s strong privacy laws.

Twitter’s move is to Ireland hopes to evade court requests from the NSA and other US-based agencies regarding users information. Ireland is said to have some of the most relaxed privacy laws throughout Europe, and as per the current Ireland laws, any data processed in Europe is exclusively not made available to the NSA unless strict consent is given within an Irish court.

Further, a proposed cyber security bill and privacy legislation in the European Union will make it more difficult for US-based companies to share advertising data about European users. Presumably another reason Twitter plans to incorporate their existing company overseas.

San Francisco-based social media giant, Twitter Inc., will continue to host and monitor all US-based accounts. Likewise, Twitter’s Periscope and Digits will also be similarly effected. Twitter announced their upcoming changes in a privacy update blog post:

“If you live outside the United States, our services are now provided to you by Twitter International Company, our company based in Dublin, Ireland,” the social media platform wrote in a blog post. “Twitter International Company will be responsible for handling your account information under Irish privacy and data protection law, which is based on the European Union’s Data Protection Directive.”

“If you live in the United States, the services will continue to be provided to you by Twitter, Inc., based in San Francisco, California, under United States law.”

Though Twitter aims to hinder the NSA and their amass of data collection, the company does not explain the reason for their change as such. Instead, Twitter claims the move to Ireland aims to: “As more people around the world use our services, we’ve expanded our operations to improve how we support our users globally.”

Twitter’s move out of the country was bold, and only time will tell how Twitter’s Ireland move will play out in real world scenario’s.

[Photo via keiyac/Flickr [CC BY 2.0]]