In what apparently is part of Twitter's strategic move to expand its business around the world, the popular micro-blogging site said in a Thursday announcement that it has refined its technology so as to selectively `censor' messages on a country-by-country basis, rather than on a global basis.

Announcing the change in a Thursday blog post titled `Tweets Must Flow,' Twitter said: "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."

In its blog post, Twitter - which has over 100 million active users - said that the censorship toll will help ensure the availability of individual messages, or "tweets" to as many people as possible, while the company works its way through the diverse laws across the world.

With the new `censorship' move coming at a time when the micro-blogging company is in the process of global expansion, Twitter elaborated in its blog post that its international expansion amounts to making a foray into countries which have "different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression." To cite an example, Twitter pointed to France and Germany which ban pro-Nazi content.

While the additional flexibility resulting from the new move will likely give rise to apprehensions that Twitter's expansion may be adversely impacting its commitment to free speech, the company has defended its standpoint by saying that it needs to strike a balance between a country's local laws and free speech during its process of expansion.