Coinciding with Data Privacy Day, Twitter has produced its
second Twitter Transparency Report, and this version has expanded information about the various legal requests that come from the U.S. Twitter is also giving the report a new home at transparency.twitter.com.
The statistics in this report are fairly consistent with Twitter’s first transparency report last summer. The U.S. is still the biggest source of government information requests with 81 percent of all requests in the second half of 2012. (That figure was 80 percent for the first half of the year.)
Overall, requests in the second half of 2012 were up about 19 percent to 1,009 — that’s all requests worldwide.
Twitter is sharing more details about those U.S. requests in this report, saying that 90 percent are in the form of subpoenas, court orders or warrants. The report also details when Twitter notifies users if a request has been made about their account.
In the second half of the year, U.S. information requests affected 1,145 Twitter accounts. Twitter says it produced some or all of the information that was requested in 69 percent of cases.
Twitter is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the French government, which is threatening to fine the company $1,300 per day if it doesn’t turn over the names and other details of users that have posted anti-Semitic tweets. Twitter says it’s bound by US laws, and won’t comply with the request unless told by a US judge to do so.
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