Twitter transparency: US submitted more government information requests to platform than any other country
US submitted largest volume of information requests to Twitter since 2012 aside from India in 2020
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The United States government issued more information requests to Twitter than any other country in the first half of 2021, according to the platform's latest transparency report.
Aside from the last reporting period in the second half of 2020, the U.S. has submitted the largest volume of information requests to Twitter since 2012.
The U.S. government's information requests made up 24% of global information requests and 27% of global requests targeting specific accounts between January and June 2021, the transparency report released Tuesday states.
Twitter's website on a laptop. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
These requests include "both emergency and routine legal demands for account information issued by law enforcement and other government agencies," according to Twitter.
"We’re facing unprecedented challenges as governments around the world increasingly attempt to intervene and remove content," Twitter’s vice president of global public policy and philanthropy, Sinead McSweeney, said in a Tuesday statement. "This threat to privacy and freedom of expression is a deeply worrying trend that requires our full attention."
TWITTER SEES 26% INCREASE IN GOVERNMENTS' REQUESTS TO REMOVE CONTENT FROM JOURNALISTS, NEWS OUTLETS
She added that Tuesday's report highlights Twitter's "long-standing commitment to meaningful transparency and the pressing, urgent need to defend the free, secure and global Open Internet."
Officials from California, Virginia, West Virginia and New York submitted the highest number of information requests to Twitter.
The top agencies requesting information were the FBI, Department of Justice and U.S. Secret Service. Those three agencies have made the greatest number of information requests for the last six reporting periods, according to Twitter.
The U.S., however, only made 45 legal demands to remove content in the first half of 2021 – a significant decrease compared to the 298 legal demands to remove content in the first half of 2020.
The country with the second-highest number of information requests in the first half of 2021 was India, which made up 18% of global requests and 30% of global accounts specified, followed by Japan and France.
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Twitter has received government information requests from 99 different countries since 2012.
Globally, Twitter received more than 43,000 legal demands to remove content from nearly 197,000 accounts, representing "the largest number of accounts ever subject to removal requests in a reporting period since releasing our first transparency report in 2012," according to Twitter.
Japan, Russia, Turkey, India and South Korea were the top requesters.
Requesters targeted the accounts of more than 170 journalists verified on Twitter through 231 legal demands – a 14% increase compared to last year.
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"An Open Internet that is global, available to all, and built on open standards and the protection of human rights must be underpinned by meaningful transparency from both companies and governments," Twitter's head of U.S. public policy, Lauren Culbertson, said in a Tuesday statement.
Culbertson said Tuesday's updated report "includes data that demonstrates the pressure governments around the world are increasingly placing on online platforms to remove speech, a trend that requires our full attention and effort."