More governments are requesting for user details and extra information on Twitter accounts, the social media company has said.
According to a new Twitter report, at least 60,000 legal demands were received within six months. The demands came from local, state or national governments seeking to have content removed or sensitive information such as direct messages or user locations revealed.
“We’re seeing governments become more aggressive in how they try to use legal tactics to unmask the people using our service, collect information about account owners and also using legal demands as a way to try and silence people,” Yoel Roth, the head of Twitter’s safety and integrity, said on Thursday.
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The U.S submitted the highest number of requests on user account information, making up 20 percent of the total. India came in second. Twitter said it complied with about 40 percent of total requests for information on user accounts.
Japan had the highest requests for removal of content from various accounts. The country submitted 23,000 requests, which makes up half of the total number of requests to pull down content. Russia followed closely after Japan.
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The report also showed that in the last half of 2021, there was a spike in requests from governments targeting verified journalists and news outlets.
Social media companies including Facebook and Instagram also reported an increase in the requests for private data from governments in the same period.
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