US Leads in Requests for Data on Twitter Accounts

Of 86 countries asking Twitter for legal information, the U.S. made the most requests, with 2,092 for data on 3,860 accounts July-December, the social-media platform reported Thursday. Seventy-three percent of the time, the company gave the U.S. government some information, it said. Globally, Twitter received nearly 7,000 requests for data on more than 11,000 accounts, falling 34 percent from January-June 2018, and turned over information 56 percent of the time. It suspended 166,513 accounts for violations related to promotion of terrorism, down 19 percent, and 456,989 related to child sexual exploitation, down 6 percent. The company uploads legal requests into Lumen database, a partnership with Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, it said. "We encourage the public to explore this site to get a sense of the day-to-day queries we receive from governments and other entities."