Indian Govt. presses for increased account information requests on Twitter
The Indian government made 261 account information requests between January to June, a 55 per cent increase from previous period - and requested for 102 accounts to be removed, Twitter’s 11th Transparency Report has revealed. The micro-blogging portal’s biannual transparency report for the period of January through June 2018, released yesterday (Dec. 13), shows that Indian authorities issued 355 requests for user information - 26% higher than a year ago.
Twitter defines the government’s information requests as requests issued by law enforcement and other government agencies. The company also revealed that it removed 299,649 terrorism-related accounts in the same period – a 20 per cent decline from the previous period.
“We have suspended a total of 935,897 accounts for the promotion of terrorism in the period of August 1, 2015, through June 30, 2017,” Twitter posted. Globally, Twitter received six per cent more government information requests (emergency disclosure requests and non-emergency requests) that affected three per cent fewer accounts from January 1 through June 30 compared to the previous reporting period. This included requests that originated from four new countries - Nepal, Paraguay, Panama and Uruguay.
Meanwhile, Twitter, which reportedly has about 8 million users in India, seems to be getting choosier about whether it will grant the government’s requests.The increase in the number of government requests seems to be part of a global trend. In a blog post accompanying the report’s release, Twitter revealed that it globally “received 10% more government information requests (combined emergency disclosure requests and non-emergency requests)”- the largest percentage increase of this type of request in three years.
Globally, there has been a dramatic 80% spike in the number of removal requests since the last reporting period. When Twitter receives a removal request through a legal order or from a government body of a particular country, it is usually compelled to remove the content even if there is no violation of its terms of service. A whopping 87% of those removal requests came from Russia and Turkey.
The report also specifies that, that during this time, “Twitter withheld two accounts and 23 Tweets in response to a legal demand from the ministry of electronics and information technology (MEITY) under section 69A of the India Information Technology Act, 2000, for propagating objectionable content.” Section 69A permits the central government to direct any intermediary to block or remove content from public view, “in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India,” among other reasons.
The government’s takedown efforts against these specific users seem to have only increased since June. Six of the accounts which had at least one of their tweets removed in the latest reporting period now seem to have been “withheld in India” since then due to legal issues.
A list of the content blocked from January through June suggests that many of the censured accounts belonged to Kashmiri users.
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