Twitter's latest transparency report reveals that not only do the number of information requests asking for user information continue to rise, but that the vast majority of those requests come from the United States.
More than 60 countries have requested information from Twitter between the months of January and June, with four countries submitting requests for the first time. The various state governments of the United States collectively submitted 2,436 information requests to Twitter in the past six months. That's 56 percent of the total requests received worldwide.
The site breaks down information requests by state. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority come from high population states like California and Texas. All but one state, Wyoming, submitted an information request within the six month time period.
And Twitter for the most part obliged to answer those requests with a 80 percent compliance rate in the U.S., meaning some information was given to interested parties in 80 percent of the requests received.
Twitter uses specific guidelines when deciding whether or not to comply with information request, saying it does not comply with requests that fail to identify a Tweet or Twitter account and that it seeks narrow requests. The company may help to narrow requests that are overly broad.
Users are notified of the requests for their account information and can challenge the request, unless the request falls into one of the exceptions under Twitter's user notice policy, such as an emergency or a request involving a compromised account.
It appears the U.S. also likes to request info retaining to multiple accounts. Though the various states submitted 2,436 requests, they sought information pertaining to 6,324 specific accounts.
Outside of the United States, Japan and Turkey come in second and third respectively when it comes to seeking Twitter user account information. Japan submitted 425 requests (10 percent of total requests received) with Turkey submitting 412 (nine percent). The United Kingdom also ranks in at the top of the list with 299 requests received, asking for information about a whopping 1,041 accounts.
Overall Twitter received 52 percent more requests for the first half of 2015 than the previous transparency report period taken from the last half of 2014. You can check out all the details in the full report here.
