US government leads requests for Twitter user data

Twitter released Monday its first ever transparency report, which states that United States leads the pack when it comes to government demands for user data, having filed 679 requests in the first half of the year. The company received a total of six requests from courts and law enforcement agencies worldwide to take down content. They came from countries as varied as France and Pakistan. The company said it had so far complied with none of them.

Outside of the government, the most common request was for the take down of copyright-infringing or defamatory material. Over the past six months, Twitter saw 3,378 requests to remove material, but complied with just 38 percent. It took down 5,275 tweets and removed 599 pieces of media items such as backgrounds or user profile pictures. It also provided Chilling Effects with a copy of the take-down notice, which, ironically provides the content of removed tweets.

"Wednesday marks Independence Day here in the United States. Beyond the fireworks and barbecue, July 4th serves as an important reminder of the need to hold governments accountable, especially on behalf of those who may not have a chance to do so themselves," Twitter said on its blog.

"We've received more government requests in the first half of 2012, as outlined in this initial dataset, than in the entirety of 2011. We do not comply with requests that fail to identify a Twitter user account. We may seek to narrow requests that are overly broad. In other cases, users may have challenged the requests after we've notified them," Twitter added.

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