Twitter said it received 52% more requests for account information affecting 78% more account holders during the first half of 2015 than in the previous reporting period.
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This is the largest increase in requests and affected accounts between reporting periods since Twitter began publishing the Transparency Report in 2012.
The United States continues to make the majority of requests for account information, comprising 56% of all requests received. Japan, ever present in the list of top requesters, surpassed Turkey as our second largest requester by just two percent.
While Japan maintained the same overall percentage of total requests as last report (10%), the total number of requests from Turkey decreased slightly (9%). The United Kingdom also remains a top requester, comprising 7% of total requests.
For the first time, Twitter is expanding the scope of the transparency report to include two new sections: trademark notices and email privacy practices.
"The foundational sections included in our report – law enforcement requests for account information, government requests for content removal, and copyright takedown notices and counter notices – are also now updated to include data for requests received between January 1 and June 30, 2015.
"As has long been the trend, we continue to see a rise in the number of these requests. Notably, requests for account information have increased 52 percent, which is the largest increase between reporting periods we have ever seen, with removal requests and copyright notices growing by 26 percent and 11 percent respectively.
"Finally, we continue to publish copies of government-issued content takedown requests for public review on Chilling Effects. Publishing aggregated transparency report data every six months is helpful, but it is no substitute for making individual content removal orders available as they are processed.
"We encourage all providers to share this important information through Chilling Effects," the company said in the statement. ■
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