India largest source of government information requests, says Twitter

India is the only largest source of government information requests in the course of the second half of 2020, accounting for 25% of the worldwide quantity, as per the biannual Twitter Transparency Report launched on Wednesday.

Globally, Twitter obtained 14,561 such requests for 51,584 accounts within the six-month interval from June to December 2020, of which 3,615 requests for 7,762 accounts had been from India. For India, this is a rise of about 38% from the primary half of the yr when the quantity of such requests stood at 2,613.

“Over the past year, we’ve experienced and continue to navigate severe global challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve also seen concerted attempts by governments to limit access to the Internet generally and to Twitter specifically,” the corporate mentioned in a weblog.

It added that international governments and legislation enforcement companies submitted roughly 15% extra information requests in comparison with the earlier reporting interval.

For the June-December interval, the compliance price for government information requests was 30% globally, and 0.6% in India. The second highest quantity of information requests originated from the United States, comprising 22% of international information requests.

Legal calls for

During the interval, Twitter obtained a complete of 38,524 authorized calls for to take away content material specifying 1,31,933 accounts. The platform withheld or in any other case eliminated some or all of the reported content material in response to 29% of these international authorized calls for.

For India, the quantity of authorized requests stood at 6,971, up 151% from 2,772 such requests within the first six months of 2020.

As a outcome of authorized requests, Twitter withheld 60 accounts and 598 tweets. In addition, 1,310 accounts had been both suspended or some content material was eliminated.

The U.S.-headquartered agency mentioned 94% of the entire international quantity of authorized calls for originated from solely 5 nations — Japan, India, Russia, Turkey, and South Korea. “Accounts of 199 verified journalists and news outlets from around the world were subject to 361 legal demands, a 26% increase in these requests since the previous reporting period.” it added.

Enforcement motion

Further, the platform mentioned that globally there was a 77% improve within the quantity of accounts actioned for violations of hateful conduct coverage throughout this reporting interval from 6,35,415 accounts to 11,26,990 accounts. The firm additionally took enforcement motion on 27,087 accounts containing non-consensual nudity, a rise of 194% from the prior reporting interval. “From July to December 2020, we saw the largest increase in the number of accounts actioned under this policy,” it mentioned.