Facebook: Government Content Restriction Requests Double in First Half of 2015
Government requests to Facebook to restrict content that violated local laws more than doubled in the first half of 2015 compared with the second half of 2014.
Government requests to Facebook to restrict content that violated local laws more than doubled in the first half of 2015 compared with the second half of 2014.
The social network’s Global Government Requests Report for January through June 2015 revealed that there were requests to restrict 20,568 pieces of content in the first half of 2015, compared with 9,707 from July through December 2014.
Facebook also reported 41,214 government requests for account data in the first half of 2015, up 18 percent from 35,051 in the second half of 2014.
The top 10 countries in terms of requests for content restrictions were:
- India, 15,155
- Turkey, 4,496
- France, 295
- Israel, 195
- Germany, 188
- Austria, 170
- Russia, 28
- Kazakhstan, 11
- U.K., 8
- Brazil, 7
And the top 10 countries in terms of requests for account data were:
- U.S., 17,577 from 26,579 accounts
- India, 5,115 from 6,268 accounts
- U.K., 3,384 from 4,489 accounts
- France, 2,520 from 2,847 accounts
- Germany, 2,344 from 2,716 accounts
- Italy, 1,816 from 2,994 accounts
- Brazil, 1,265 from 1,954 accounts
- Australia, 693 from 744 accounts
- Spain, 619 from 1,000 accounts
- Argentina, 568 from 694 accounts
Facebook deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby said in a Newsroom post announcing the availability of the new Global Government Requests Report:
As we have emphasized before, Facebook does not provide any government with “back doors” or direct access to people’s data. We scrutinize each request we receive for legal sufficiency, whether from an authority in the U.S., Europe or elsewhere. If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, we push back hard and will fight in court, if necessary.
Over the past two years, we’ve regularly published information about the nature and extent of the requests we receive. To protect people’s information, we will continue to apply a rigorous approach to every government request we receive. We’ll also keep working with partners in industry and civil society to push governments around the world to reform surveillance in a way that protects their citizens’ safety and security while respecting their rights and freedoms.
Readers: What did you think of the latest Global Government Requests Report from Facebook?
