Govt Of India Asked Twitter To Reveal Details About 2200 Indians In 6 Months: Here’s The Reason Why?

The Indian government asked Twitter for data on 2,200 user accounts in the January-June 2021 period, revealed Twitter in its latest transparency report.

However, the company complied with just 2% of the routine requests, and 6% of emergency requests.

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The monthly report is part of its compliance with India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

The report contains details of the type and volume of requests it receives from both government and non-government entities during a specified period and actions it takes against them.

It also received nearly 5,000 legal demands from India to remove specific accounts- 10% less than in the previous reporting period. 

Over A Third Against Journos

38.5% of these demands were against accounts of journalists and news publications- the most in the world. 

India made 89 legal demands against such accounts out of the total global tally of 231.

As a result, three tweets were withheld which came from accounts of Indian journalists and were reported for “possible incitement towards offline harm”.

Preservation Requests

Global government preservation requests decreased by 4%.

A preservation request refers to specific information being set aside or preserved on the request of a government agency while it applies for legal approval to attain full disclosure of that information. 

The US (57%) and India (25%) together accounted for 82% of such requests.

Demands To Remove Content

Twitter received 43,387 legal demands to remove content- the largest number recorded since 2012.

It said that it gave partial or no response to 64% of all the information requests it received.

This is a decrease of 9% compared to Dec 2020 when the company gave little or no response to 70% of all government data requests.

It explained that where appropriate, it can challenge the requests for account information which are “incomplete or improper, such as requests that are facially invalid or overbroad in scope”.

Flagrant Offences

In the reporting period, Twitter ordered account holders to remove 4.7 million tweets for rule violations.

It permanently suspended 453,754 unique accounts for violations of its child sexual exploitation (CSE) policy.

It further suspended 44,974 unique accounts for promotion of terrorism and violent organisations.