“India’s 17,338 legal claims between 2012 and 2021 account for 7% of global legal claims (totaling 225,076 worldwide),” an internal report prepared by the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) said, noting that Twitter has 2.36 crore users in India – its third largest user base globally.
“India is 7% of Twitter’s global user base and so is the volume of takedown requests (from India),” according to the official analysis.
EE has reviewed a copy of the report.
In comparison, Japan which accounts for 18% of Twitter’s global user base has issued 32% of global legal requests while South Korea has issued 5% of takedown requests with only a 2% user base,” the report found. .
A spokesperson for Twitter told ET that the company had no comment to share on the findings.
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Constant fighting
This latest analysis comes even as Twitter and the central government are engaged in a showdown over the growing number of official requests to remove and block accounts. Earlier this month, the social media platform approached the Karnataka High Court challenging at least 39 such blocking orders issued by the union IT ministry.
To be sure, while the government claims its takedown requests are in line with the country’s growing internet consumption, cyber security firms rank the total number of legal requests made by India through 2020 – to social media and other technological platforms – slightly below the one issued by Russia, which leads globally in the number of requests made.
An October 2021 research report by Comparitech said that the Indian government had, by 2020, sent 97,631 requests to remove content on various social media and major technology platforms such as Twitter, Google, Facebook, YouTube and others.
Meanwhile, MeitY in its latest review claimed that Twitter’s compliance rate in India was “extremely low” compared to its actions in other countries. The report stated that the microblogging platform has an overall compliance rate of 13% in the United States, 21% in Brazil, 16% in Canada, 38% in Japan and 19% in New Zealand.
“While in India it is only 11%. More worryingly, there have been 76 Indian court orders for Twitter, of which (it has) complied with only 34% according to Twitter’s transparency report,” MeitY’s analysis said.
ET had earlier reported that the IT ministry, in its next fortnightly meeting with social media brokers, may raise the issue of non-compliance, particularly with regard to its legal and content orders for their removal.
The IT ministry is “likely to meet the (social media) mediators on Friday and may raise the issue,” according to people aware of the matter.
Global perspective
Official sources told ET that the IT ministry’s detailed report, which is being scrutinized at the highest levels within the ministry, reveals that content removal orders issued by India are not “that high” when viewed in a global context. .
Citing data from Twitter’s global transparency data, MeitY’s report says that during the first six months of 2021, 95% of total legal requests to Twitter originated from five countries, namely Japan, Russia, Turkey, India and South Korea.
The US company has not published any data on its transparency portal further until June 2021, the report noted, while pointing out that “India accounted for only 11% of global legal requests for content removal (during January-June 2021) from 18. % in the previous reporting period”.
India dropped from the second largest submission to the fourth largest submission of requests on Twitter.
“This decline is despite the massive disparity in the size of the top four countries in terms of population and Twitter users,” the internal report notes.
Further, MeitY taking Google’s key takedown data from tech noted that India was “never out of line” with global trends when it came to issuing content takedown orders.
These takedown orders are “necessary to prevent the apocalypse” as a growing number of users has meant a “rampant increase in malicious posts with implications for national security, law and order and threat to the country’s citizens,” it said. in the analysis of the ministry.
Most takedown requests to Google in India are for impersonation (51%), followed by defamation (17%), obscenity/nudity (7%), the report noted.
He also highlighted India’s “proximity to high-risk nations” adding that the country is “highly vulnerable to various terrorism and anti-national activities”.
Google did not respond to questions from ET on the latest findings.
