Governments double the number of requests from Twitter to reveal personal info
This is why I love CliffCentral – you never know what you might learn at any point in time when you tune in. Today on Gareth Cliff show on CliffCentral, a discussion was had around the freedom of expression on Twitter with Stephen McIntyre who is Twitter’s vice in Europe, Middle East and Africa region. A comment was made to about Twitter’s Transparency report which is something I have not used before.
The report is a biannual report which highlights the following:
Information Request – these are requests from Governments around the world who are looking for info which is usually linked to criminal activity. This can also be account-specific too.
- Removal Request – these are the requests from Governments and from authorised reporters) to remove specific content from Twitter. Content removal is done when served with a court order which requires the removal of defamatory statements, or law enforcement may ask to remove prohibited content.
- Copyright Notices – the report includes the total number of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices and counter notices received on Twitter, Vine, and Periscope, along with data about the top five copyright reporters across all three platforms.
- Trademark Notices – This report includes Trademark Policy violations received for Twitter and Vine.
- Email Privacy – This is a high-level overview of different providers’ email privacy practices to show how and when email security protocols are being used.
The website is simple to use and you can slice the data and zoom into sections that appeal to you.
For example in the latest report which is January – June 2015 we can see that:
- There were 4363 requests by governments asking Twitter to reveal specific information.
- The USA asked for 2436 bits of info about 6324 accounts. 80% of the times some information was supplied.
- Japan asked 425 bits of info about 525 accounts but only 42% of the times some info was supplied.
- India asked only 113 time but about 2963 accounts and only 19% of the times some info was given.
Interesting to note that South Africa was not not on any list in this report.
According to Twitter:
As has long been the trend, we continue to see a rise in the number of these requests. Notably, requests for account information have increased 52 percent, which is the largest increase between reporting periods we have ever seen, with removal requests and copyright notices growing by 26 percent and 11 percent respectively
