According to Facebook Inc’s bi-annual Government Requests Report, data from January to June 2014 saw the social media network restrict access to 1,773 pieces of content which the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and the Ministry of Information Technology (MoIT) had reported, mostly under local laws which prohibit blasphemy and criticism of the state.
This number is in stark contrast to the 166 pieces of content to which access was restricted by the social media network between in the second half of 2013. Facebook has not provided any data on content to which access was restricted to between January-June 2013, or earlier.
This, however, is not the sum of the government’s attempts at greater oversight on the Internet.
According to Facebook’s data, the government has increasingly started making inquiries for data on specific users and accounts on Facebook, noting a 240.3% increase for requests made in the first half of 2014 over the corresponding period last year.
In the first six months of 2013, the government had made a total of 35 requests for information on 47 users or accounts. Of these requests, Facebook said some data was produced for 77% of those requests.
In contrast, the government sent in 116 requests for 160 users or accounts between January and June of 2014. Of these, Facebook only provided data for only 35.34% of cases.
Interestingly, this is a slight decline in the number of requests made by the government between July-December 2013 when the government had sought data for 163 users or accounts in 126 requests. Of these, some data was produced for 47.62% of cases.
Facebook notes that they respond to valid government requests relating to criminal cases, a vast majority of which relate to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings. While in many of these instances the government may request basic subscriber information, such as name and length of service, other requests may also seek IP address logs or actual account content.
However, the social media network adds that each and every request that they receive is checked for legal sufficiency. Some which are overly broad or vague are either rejected or sent back seeking greater specificity.
Requests by govts worldwide jump by a quarter
Facebook Inc said requests by governments for user information rose by about a quarter in the first half of 2014 over the second half of last year.
In the first six months of 2014, governments around the world made 34,946 requests for data. During the same time, the amount of content restricted because of local laws increased about 19 per cent.
"We're aggressively pursuing an appeal to a higher court to invalidate these sweeping warrants and to force the government to return the data it has seized," the company said in a company blog post on Tuesday.
Google Inc reported in September a 15 per cent sequential increase in the number of requests in the first half of this year, and a 150 per cent rise in the last five years, from governments around the world to reveal user information in criminal investigations.
Additional information from Reuters
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Good to know our beloved government has got its priorities right. Once they've done scrutinizing Facebook for blasphemies, one should hope they would look at minor problems too, such as people being burned to death for blasphemy by truly peace-loving Muslim Pakistanis, etc.
I am happy to see that pakistan is spending so much of money to protect the religion of peace.
The government of Pakistan and Intel Agencies are the biggest blackmailers as well. They can use personal information of any account for their heinous agenda. They can name anyone as a Robber, rapist, blasphemer and can contact facebook to access the whole information. In my view if you are living in a country like ours then avoid the social forums like Facebook to avoid leaking your information to the Sleuths. Also one hacker in the past stated that Pakistani Government agencies are using the software Finfisher to hack into anyone's computer and access their personal information.
http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2013/05/23/advocates-challenge-use-of-finfisher-surveillance-software-in-pakistan/
Get a life !! What are you guys acting so precious for??!!
Pakistan is probably spending more on its efforts to monitor and censor Facebook contents than it spends on education.