Micro-blogging site Twitter said it had blocked a neo-Nazi group's account at the request of German police, in what it called a global first for the company.
In a move pitting censorship concerns against national laws on hate speech, Twitter said on Thursday it had deployed the tool developed this year to comply with the request by the German authorities.
"We announced the ability to withhold content back in January," Alex Macgillivray, Twitter's chief lawyer, said in a tweet posted on the website.
"We're using it now for the first time re: a group deemed illegal in Germany."
Twitter's spokesman in Germany, Dirk Hensen, confirmed the decision in an email to the AFP news agency.
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 that was outlawed last month.
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).
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.
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