In 2021, Twitter received a record number of government requests for deletions

Twitter saw record number of government requests worldwide to remove content between January and June 2021, data shows shared by the social network.

Lots of requests from governments for Twitter

The platform reports that governments made 43,387 legal requests to remove content from 196,878 accounts during this period. According to Twitter, this is the highest number of accounts that have been the subject of such requests from governments in any given period since the company began publishing its reports in 2012. also the highest number of deletion requests.

Twitter said it either denied access to content in certain countries or required account holders to remove some or all flagged content, in response to 54% of global legal requests during this period. Japan, followed by Russia, Turkey, India and South Korea together constitute 95% of these legal claims. The United States is responsible for about 57% of requests for Twitter to preserve account information.

“We are facing unprecedented challenges as governments around the world increasingly try to step in and remove content”said Sinead McSweeney, Twitter’s vice president of global public policy, in a statement. “This threat to privacy and freedom of expression is a deeply worrying trend that requires our full attention”.