Popular online forum Reddit released its very first transparency report right after the company updated its privacy policy earlier in January, in a move that looks to address the forum's transparency issues.
The updates that Reddit made included the promise that the company will now be making annual transparency reports. The first report now comes within the same month of announcing the policy updates.
In a post on its official blog, Reddit stated that the company regularly receives requests from entities such as government and law enforcement authorities regarding the private information of its users or for the removal of content within its forms. In addition, Reddit also sometimes receives formal subpoenas and requests from individuals.
Reddit noted that the requests the forum receives are often legitimate ones, adding that the company pushes back against those that Reddit feels invades the privacy of its users or are too overbroad.
Reddit's transparency report for the full year of 2014 revealed that the company refused 42 percent of all government and civil requests for user information. The company also refused 69 percent of requests for the removal of content on the forums.
Reddit received only 55 requests throughout 2014. Of the total number of requests, 29 were United States subpoenas, and the company disclosed user information for 17 of them, which is about 59 percent. For comparison, Google received a total of 31,968 requests over 2014's first half alone, with the company disclosing data on 65 percent of the requests.
According to Reddit, most of the requests that it receives from the government include non-binding demands to not inform users regarding the requests. Reddit stated that the company disregards these demands and informs the affected users before their information is disclosed, unless there is a court order that prohibits Reddit from doing so.
Reddit added that disclosed information for seven out of the eight search warrants from within the United States that the company received, but none out of the five search warrants it received from other countries. This is because, as a company based in the United States, Reddit will not disclose information for a request made from another country unless instructed to do so by a United States court.
Reddit received 218 requests to take down content, mostly involving possible copyright infringements with 176 such requests. Of these, the company took down content for 66 of them, equivalent to 38 percent.
The company added that it has not yet received a National Security Letter, a request under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user data.
