Last June, Twitter hopped on the transparency train and released its first report indexing information requests, copyright takedown notices and removal requests from governments around the globe. Now, the second report is out, with new details on what the US government is doing in particular.
Weirdly enough, copyright takedown requests are actually down in the past six months. When it comes to transparency reports, you’ll usually find that requests of all kinds are on the rise. And for the most part, that’s true with Twitter as well.
Globally, government information requests are up 19 per cent (20 per cent in the US), and non-copyright removal requests are up a whopping 600 per cent worldwide, with the US going up from zero to four. But when it comes to copyright takedowns, the total amount of requests is down, although admittedly by a scant 3 per cent. And the accuracy of these requests seems to be getting better, nearly 20 per cent higher than before.
All in all, there seems to be a slow climb that’s typical of these kinds of services over time, but it’s worth noting that government requests for information or removal are totally dwarfed by the copyright requests. It looks like your inane tweets are safe from scrutiny by johnny law for now, but big media is scrutinising just a little more. [Twitter]