Twitter turns down all requests from Pakistan Government for removal of user accounts

Pakistan government contacted Twitter several times for access to user information or removal of accounts. Twitter turned them down each time.

According to Twitter’s bi-annual Transparency Report, it received 7 requests from the Pakistan government for information regarding 60 specified Twitter accounts in the first half of 2017. However, Twitter did not comply with any of the requests and no information was handed over. The government also made 2 requests for emergency disclosure, all of whom were turned down as well. In the last half of 2016 – between July to December – the government made only 4 account information requests. The 2017 figures for the first half show that figure has risen.

The report also shed light on the account removal requests it received from the Pakistani government, police, and other official agencies. According to these statistics, Twitter received 24 requests from Pakistan for the removal of 82 reported accounts. This is a huge spike, as Twitter received only 13 requests for the removal of 19 accounts.

But the fact remains, while the number of account information or account removal requests from Pakistan have increased, all of them remain ignored by Twitter like the previous years.

Apart from Twitter, other tech giants also put out their transparency reports. In 2016, Google reported that it had fulfilled 13% of the requests made by Pakistan Government. While Facebook revealed in its “Government Requests Report 2016” that Pakistan made about 712 legal requests and 1015 account-related requests, out of which, Facebook took action on only 65.45%.

[Image Source – Daily Pakistan]