Brazil Sues Twitter Over DUI Checkpoint Tweets

Follow this guy, and be sure to miss the sobriety checkpoints

​Last week, Twitter users were outraged by the company's new policy to allow censorship country-by-country -- not that this will have any influence in places like China or Iran, where tweeting is entirely blocked.

In any event, the new policy is getting its first real test after Brazil filed a lawsuit against the San Francisco company. The Brazilian government is less than pleased with Twitter for allowing users to tweet locations of upcoming sobriety checkpoints, giving drunk drivers a chance to elude the cops. 

According to Gizmodo, more than 300,000 users are following the Twitter account that posted the locations of the DUI checkpoints as well as locations of police radars, and Brazil says that's essentially promoting drinking and driving.
 
The lawsuit filed this week asks Twitter to suspend and block those accounts that warn drivers of the sobriety checkpoint. The South American country is asking Twitter to pay a $290,000 fine for every day it refuses to comply with the injunction.

No word just yet on how Twitter plans to deal with this claim.

Follow us on Twitter at @SFWeekly and @TheSnitchSF