Social media giant Twitter has responded to mounting calls for protest over a new policy that will block tweets and user accounts on a country-by-country basis. In a blog update earlier today, the company clarified that the change was meant to promote freedom of expression — not to squash it.

"In short, we believe the new, more granular approach to withheld content is a good thing for freedom of expression, transparency, accountability— and for our users," the company wrote. "Besides allowing us to keep Tweets available in more places, it also allows users to see whether we are living up to our freedom of expression ideal."

The company announced Thursday that it would remove tweets in certain countries, at the request of the local government, while keeping them available to the rest of the world. Previously, Twitter was only capable of removing content from users in all countries, not just in one.

Users upset with the change took to — what else? — Twitter, calling for a boycott Saturday of the social media service under the hashtag #TwitterBlackout.

Twitter also explained that content would not be removed unless it received a "valid and applicable legal request" from the country in question.

The update also provided examples of what users would see once content was blocked:

blog.twitter.com

An example of what a withheld tweet would look like under Twitter's new policy