In its latest transparency report, Twitter said India had filed 114 requests from July to December 2021 to block tweets posted by verified accounts of scribes and news companies
In its latest transparency report, Twitter said India had filed 114 requests from July to December 2021 to block tweets posted by verified accounts of scribes and news companies
India made the highest number of legal requests globally to remove content posted by verified journalists and media outlets on Twitter during July-December 2021, the microblogging platform said.
In its latest transparency report, Twitter said India was only behind the US in requests for Twitter account information, accounting for 19% of global requests for information.
It was among the top five countries that issued orders to block content on Twitter between July and December 2021 for all types of users.
Twitter said 349 verified journalist and media accounts worldwide were subject to 326 legal requests to remove content, a 103% increase in the number of accounts since the previous period (January-June 2021).
“This increase is mainly attributable to legal claims filed by India (114), Turkey (78), Russia (55) and Pakistan (48),” he said.
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India had also topped this list for the period January-June 2021. In that time frame, India had made 89 of the total 231 such requests that the platform received globally.
Twitter said the “legal requests” include a combination of court orders and other formal requests to remove content, both from government entities and lawyers representing individuals.
Without giving details, 17 tweets from verified journalists and media outlets globally were kept secret during the second half of 2021 compared to 11 tweets withheld during the January-June period.
Twitter said it received a legal request from India’s National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to remove content related to privacy issues involving a minor.
While Twitter did not name anyone, the reference was to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s post of August last year, when he shared a photo of the parents of a minor Dalit girl who was allegedly raped.
“The reported tweet published by a senior political figure was held in India in accordance with Indian law,” he said.
Twitter also received the second-highest number of government legal requests for user account information from India, after the US
“The United States submitted the most requests for government information during this reporting period, accounting for 20% of global volume and 39% of specified global accounts.
“The second highest volume of requests came from India, accounting for 19 percent of global information requests and 27 percent of global specified accounts,” he said.
Japan, France and Germany were the other three countries in the top five by volume.
“Twitter received 63 (+3%) more routine requests from India, while the number of routine accounts specified increased by 205 (+3%) during this reporting period for a total of 2,211 requests for 7,768 accounts,” the report said. .
Globally, Twitter received 11,460 requests.
Giving details of the legal requests made by India, Twitter said a total of 3,992, or 8% of the 47,572 worldwide, requests to remove content from its platform were made between July and December 2021. These included 23 court orders and 3,969 other legal requirements.
During this period, Twitter maintained 88 accounts and 303 tweets in India.
According to Twitter’s guidelines, ‘government information requests’ include urgent and routine legal requests for account information issued by law enforcement and other government agencies.
‘Routine requests’ (also known as non-emergency requests) are legal requests issued by government or law enforcement authorities (eg, subpoenas, court orders, search warrants) that compel Twitter to return information about account.
Twitter said it may disclose account information to law enforcement agencies in response to a valid “urgent request” if it is provided with sufficient information to support a good faith belief that there is an imminent threat involving the risk of death or serious physical injury to a person. , and contains important information to avoid or mitigate the threat.
“97% of total global legal claim volume originates from just five countries (in descending order): Japan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and India. These five countries remain Twitter’s top requesters for legal claims during the last three years”, says the report.
India is the fifth largest claimant, accounting for 8% of global legal claims.
“Maintaining its position among the top five requesters, the Indian authorities continued to submit a significant number of legal requests this reporting period, which also involved a high volume of URLs,” he said.
Regarding ‘storage requests’, he said global government storage requests increased by 10%, while specified accounts increased by 19% during this reporting period.
The US (34%) and India (51%) together accounted for 85% of all global storage requirements.
“Retention Requests” refers to government and law enforcement requests made pursuant to applicable law that require Twitter to retain specified account data pending the issuance of valid legal process to obtain such data .
