{"id":640300,"date":"2013-01-28T12:23:26","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T17:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=604974"},"modified":"2013-01-28T12:23:26","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T17:23:26","slug":"twitter-releases-data-on-government-info-requests-from-second-half-of-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/640300","title":{"rendered":"Twitter releases data on government info requests from second half of 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twitter released new data Monday<\/a> on requests from governments for Twitter user\u00a0information during\u00a0the second half of 2012, following a July report with data from the first six months.
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In Q3 and Q4 of 2012, Twitter saw increases in<\/a> information requests (1009, up from 849 in Q1 and Q2) and removal notices (42, up from 6), and a slight decrease in copyright notices (3268, down from 3378).<\/p>\n

Twitter’s two reports are now hosted on a specific site<\/a> dedicated to government transparency, and the company wrote in a blog post<\/a> that it would be providing “more granular details regarding information requests from the United States,” as well as adding sections to track\u00a0removal requests and copyright notices.<\/p>\n

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We believe the\u00a0open exchange of information<\/a>\u00a0can have a positive global impact. To that end, it is vital for us (and other Internet services) to be transparent about government requests for user information and government requests to withhold content from the Internet; these growing inquiries can have a serious chilling effect on free expression \u2013 and real privacy implications.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Google has been providing transparency reports since 2009, and the company released its most recent set of data last week. My colleague Jeff Roberts explained the significance behind the data release<\/a>\u00a0and the stats Google provided, which applies to the Twitter data as well:<\/p>\n

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What this means in practice is that authorities in the United States and other countries are regularly demanding that Google hand over the keys to user accounts like Gmail or YouTube. In many cases, the government may have a legitimate reason to ask for such information, such as solving a crime or stopping a spying operation.\u00a0Other times, though, governments may simply be fishing for data in a way that flouts citizens\u2019 right to privacy. Such fishing expeditions, unfortunately, are relatively easy in the U.S. thanks to the sprawl of so-called\u00a0administrative\u00a0subpoenas<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a legal tool that lets agencies demand data without first proving to a judge that they have a right to get it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While Twitter has followed in Google’s footsteps in releasing\u00a0surveillance\u00a0data so far, Facebook has so far declined to provide the info, although it noted it’s working to promote\u00a0transparency\u00a0in other areas of its site. The company just launched an “Ask Our Chief Privacy Officer” feature<\/a> on Monday to replace the voting system for privacy changes that it recently abolished<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s the chart from Twitter showing the overview of government requests for 2012:<\/p>\n

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Twitter released new data Monday on requests from governments for Twitter user\u00a0information during\u00a0the second half of 2012, following a July report with data from the first six months. In Q3 and Q4 of 2012, Twitter saw increases in information requests (1009, up from 849 in Q1 and Q2) and removal notices (42, up from 6), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}