Twitter’s Latest Transparency Report Details Increases In DMCA, Removal & Information Requests

Twitter’s latest transparency report shows that the company is seeing double-digit increases in data-related requests so far this year from governments and other rights holders.

Twitter breaks down the requests it gets into three types: information, removal and copyright notices. All three are up significantly so far in 2013 compared to the same time period a year ago.

• Information Requests: Twitter has received 1,157 of these so far this year, a 36 percent increase compared to the first half of 2012.
• Removal Requests: These went from just six last year to 60 so far in 2013, a 1,000% increase.
• Copyright Notices: Twitter has received 5,753 of these notices so far this year, a 70 percent increase over the same period last year (and a 76 percent increase compared to the second half of 2012).

On the last item — copyright notices — Twitter says 61 percent of the notices it received actually led to content removal. How much? Twitter says 18,413 tweets and 3,993 “media” were removed, affecting 22,399 accounts. (“Media” includes Vine videos, Twitter-hosted images, as well as header, profile and background images.)

The United States remains the biggest source of data-related requests that Twitter gets, accounting for 78 percent of the total so far this year. Japan is second, the UK is third, and Brazil was the fourth biggest source of requests. Twitter says it’s received requests from 35 different governments since it began publishing its transparency report last summer.

About The Author

Matt McGee

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.