Twitter declined all Pakistan govt requests for account removal

Government made 13 requests to Twitter for the removal of 19 accounts between July to December

WASHINGTON: Twitter declined all Pakistani government requests for account information and removal of accounts in the second half of 2016.

According to the Twitter Transparency report, Pakistan made four total account information requests between July and December last year, compared to six requests made during the first half of 2016. Although the number of requests made was lower, the number of accounts specified in the requests had increased from 22 in the first half of 2016 to 38 in the second half.



Pakistan also made 13 requests to Twitter for the removal of 19 accounts between July to December last year, compared to eight removal request for 32 accounts in the first half of 2016.



Twitter claimed that it did not remove any account or provide any data to the Pakistan government as opposed to a global trend which saw Twitter suspending more accounts than ever before.

Over 376,000 accounts suspended for ‘promotion of terrorism’

Twitter said Tuesday it suspended 376,890 accounts in the second half of 2016 for "promotion of terrorism," an increase of 60 per cent over the prior six-month period.

The latest suspensions bring the total number of blocked accounts to 636,248 from August 2015, when Twitter stepped up efforts to curb "violent extremism," the company announced as part of its latest transparency report.

The actions come with social networks under pressure from governments around the world to use technology tools to lock out extremists and others who use the platforms to recruit and launch attacks.



Twitter said separately the number of government requests for user data rose seven per cent from the prior six-month period but affected 13 per cent fewer accounts.

For requests to remove content – from governments and others including copyright holders – the number of requests was up 13 per cent but the number of accounts fell 37 per cent.

Twitter announced that the FBI had informed the social network it was no longer under a "gag order" that prevented the disclosure of five cases involving "national security letters" -- special requests from the US law enforcement agency in national security cases.

As a result, Twitter was able to inform the affected users of the FBI requests.

"As we continue to push for more transparency in how we can speak about national security requests, we will update this new section in future transparency reports," Twitter stated.



Twitter, which is pressured by certain governments to remove "hate speech," disclosed for the first time a partnership with a third-party research group called Lumen to catalogue any information removed.

Twitter said it began the agreement with Lumen in 2010.

"Unless we are prevented from doing so when we withhold content in a certain country Twitter will continue to provide a copy of the request to Lumen so anyone can see what type of content was removed and who made the request," the company said.

Another section of the transparency report was devoted to "legal removals," or requests to remove content from verified journalists and other media outlets.

"Given the concerning global trend of various governments cracking down on press freedom, we want to shine a brighter light on these requests," Twitter said.

It received 88 legal requests from around the world to remove content posted by verified journalists or news outlets but did not take any action on the majority of the requests, "with limited exceptions in Germany and Turkey," which accounted for 88 per cent of such requests.

"For example, we were compelled to withhold tweets sharing graphic imagery following terror attacks in Turkey in response to a court order," Twitter said.