Twitter (TWTR) Reports 40% Increase in Government Data Requests Since Last July

Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) posted the following to its official blog on Monday:

Since we launched our first transparency report back in 2012, many other companies have followed suit (more than 30, according to this recently published list by Access). These reports shine a light on government requests for customers’ information. Providing this insight is simply the right thing to do, especially in an age of increasing concerns about government surveillance.

We saw an overall increase of 40 percent in government requests for Twitter user account information since our last report. While requests have increased in many countries, Russia, Turkey, and the United States stand out from the rest. In Russia, we went from having never received a request to receiving more than 100 requests for account information during this reporting period. We did not provide information in response to any of those requests. Requests from Turkey increased over 150 percent. Again, we did not provide information in response to any of those requests. Meanwhile, we saw a 29 percent increase in requests from the United States, while our compliance rate increased 8 percent.

We’ve also included metrics covering global aggregate non-government requests via legal process for account information (which include both civil matters and defense requests in criminal cases) for the first time. With the exception of national security requests, as discussed below, this addition allows us to provide a near-complete overview of the global requests we receive for account information.

We publish copies of government-issued content takedown requests for public review on Chilling Effects when we take action on those demands and clearly mark any content we’re forced to withhold.

With that said, it is important that transparency efforts extend beyond information requests to provide a more comprehensive picture of government requests and company actions. One way we’ve tried to do that at Twitter is to publish copies of government-issued content takedown requests for public review on Chilling Effects when we take action on those demands and clearly mark any content we’re forced to withhold – a course of action we’ve followed since we first received government demands to to remove content from our platform. Publishing aggregated transparency report data every six months is helpful, but is no substitute for making individual takedown orders available as they are processed

The top three requesting countries included: Turkey (477 requests), Russia (91), and Germany (43).

Tweet

During this reporting period, we received an 84 percent increase in global government and government-sanctioned demands to remove content from Twitter. The top three requesting countries included: Turkey (477 requests), Russia (91), and Germany (43). Turkish requests generally focused on claimed violations of personal rights (such as defamation) of both private citizens and government officials. During this period, we filed court objections in response to over 70 percent of the Turkish court orders we received, winning ~5 percent of our appeals, losing ~80 percent, and having ~15 percent still pending with the courts (note: we have never used country withheld content in Turkey without receiving a court order first). As for Russia, requests ranged from promotion of illegal drugs to attempts to suppress non-violent demonstrations. While we had a compliance rate of 13 percent, we denied several requests to silence popular critics of the Russian government and other demands to limit speech about non-violent demonstrations in Ukraine. Most German requests dealt with complaints of alleged hateful and discriminatory content, resulting in 37 percent compliance. As noted above, all of the requests that resulted in a withholding are publicly available on Chilling Effects.

As more companies consider publishing or expanding their own reports, we strongly encourage them to join us and our peers at Google, Vimeo, WordPress and Wikimedia in publishing government removal demands.

Providing this level of transparency is not without its complications and sometimes means we get tough questions and criticism about our decisions. However, this candid feedback helps us to be evermore thoughtful about our policies and decisions regarding content and compliance as we navigate complex, diverse legal regimes around the world. As more companies consider publishing or expanding their own reports, we strongly encourage them to join us and our peers at Google, Vimeo, WordPress and Wikimedia in publishing government removal demands. The global community deserves this level of transparency from its governments and its service providers.

Turning to secret surveillance requests, we have recently filed a lawsuit against the United States government in federal court, seeking greater transparency in national security reporting. After our initial filing, the United States government publicly filed a redacted version of our draft transparency report with the court hearing our case. We will continue to fight for this cause.

Finally, in keeping with our global reach, we translated the prior five reports into 10 languages late last year and are in the process of localizing today’s report as well. We’ve also added interactive maps to both the information requests and removal requests sections (desktop-only for now). We hope these updates make understanding the nature of these requests and emerging global trends more accessible and engaging.

For more details, we invite you to read through our latest report.

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