India issued most govt requests for account information between July-December 2020: Twitter

As per Twitter's new transparency report, India issued the highest number of government requests, accounting for 25% of requests received globally, for account information between July-December 2020. Furthermore, India also ranks second in demands for content removal after Japan.

India is seconded by the US in information requests, who accounts for 22 per cent of the global amount. In terms of global emergency requests, the US tops, accounting for 34 per cent of globally received emergency requests, followed by Japan at 17 per cent and South Korea at 16 per cent. In about 30 per cent of requests, Twitter produced some or all requested information.

In the period of six months, Twitter received 38,524 demands for content removal pertaining to 1,31,933 accounts. In regard to 29% of these complaints, the platform withheld or removed content.

"Although there was a 9 per cent decrease in the number of legal demands Twitter received, compared to the previous reporting period, these requests sought removal of content from the largest number of accounts ever in a single reporting period," Twitter added.

Additionally, 94% per cent of legal demands originated from five countries; Japan, India, Russia, Turkey and South Korea. 199 verified journalists and news outlets were subject to 361 legal demands, a 26 per cent increase from the previous period. Twitter also removed 3.8 million tweets violative of its rules in the aforementioned period.

Twitter releases a biannual report every six months sharing details of the number of government and legal requests, removal requests and data around accounts actioned for various violations and breach of rules.