Twitter: Governments around the world asked for information about Twitter users, disclosures can stir up

By New Times Of India Staff On Jul 30, 2022

Twitter has revealed that governments around the world are asking it to remove content from user accounts or spy on their personal details. The company said that it has served 60,000 requests from local, state and national governments over the past 6 years and 6 months.

Twitter: Governments around the world asked for information about Twitter users, disclosures can stir up

These governments wanted either the content to be removed from Twitter or the company to release confidential user information, the company revealed in a new report.

Joel Roth, Twitter’s head of security and integrity, said: “We are seeing governments use legal tactics to expose users of our service, collect information about account owners, and silence people.” Going more aggressively, Facebook and Instagram owner Meta also reported an increase in government demands for personal user data during the same time frame.

America’s Most request to India is far behind

According to a new report released by Twitter, the US has received the highest 20 percent of requests, while India is far behind in this matter. Twitter says it has shared account information for about 40 percent of the users it requested. Several requests have been made to Japan to obtain account information and to remove the content. They made more than half of all 23,000 requests. Russia was not far behind either.

Also read: Social media: Twitter said – if the government keeps giving ‘blocking orders’, our business will be closed

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Rob Mahoney, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement that the government was using social media companies to silence critics and journalists.

Request to target journalists and media also etc

Twitter reported a sharp increase in requests from governments targeting verified journalists and media outlets during the last half of 2021. Between July and December last year, governments around the world took legal action against 349 accounts, an increase of 103 percent. In this context, Twitter did not mention the names of the countries.