Indian Government Asks Twitter for Information on 474 Accounts

Nov. 1, 2019

In total, 1,268 Twitter accounts were specified for information requests and 2,484 accounts for removal requests from India. The information request“data includes the number of government requests received for account information, as well as the percentage of requests we complied with in whole or in part from India”, said Twitter.

Information requests from the US government continued to make up the highest percentage of legal requests for account information. During the reporting period, 29 percent of all global requests for account information originated within the US (2,120 demands for 4,150 accounts). The social media platform said it received 7,300 demands for user data, up by 6 percent a year earlier, but that the number of accounts affected are down by 25 per cent. The company turned over some account data in just less than half of all cases.

“Compared to the previous reporting period, we received roughly 67 per cent more legal requests to remove content, originating from 49 different countries. Of the requests received, 80 per cent of the volume originated from Japan, Russia, and Turkey. We withheld content in a country 2,457 times, at either an account or Tweet level”, informed Twitter.

A total of 115,861 accounts were suspended for violations related to the promotion of terrorism, down 30 percent from the previous reporting period.“Of those suspensions, 87 per cent consisted of accounts we proactively flagged using internal, proprietary removal tools”, said Twitter.

The company saw a 48 per cent increase in accounts reported for potential violations of its private information policies.“We suspended 119 percent more accounts than the previous reporting period”, it said. In the case of impersonation, Twitter took enforcement action on 124,339 accounts for violating its impersonation policy.“We saw a 22 percent increase in accounts reported for potential violations of our abuse policies. We took action on 68 per cent more accounts compared to the last reporting period”, it added.

There was a 48 percent increase in accounts reported for potential violations of its hateful conduct policies. During the reporting period, Twitter suspended a total of 244,188 accounts for violations related to child sexual exploitation.