This past week, Twitter released their second Transparency Report, a public report about requests by governments concerning user information, content removal, etc. The report cited 1858 information request, 46 removal requests, and 6,646 Copyright Notices, and as Twitter continues to grow in France and abroad, this report will become more & more interesting. As of today, it seems that most of the government activity is coming from the United States, which lines up with Google’s Transparency Report.
Transparency Reports are a good way for honest companies to show just how honest they are, and Google’s Transparency Report has really been an example of how companies can comply with government demands and also somehow manage to give them the finger at the same time. In Twitter’s most recent report, we learn that France has specified just 54 accounts (compared to 1145 in the US or 75 in Japan) in requests for content removal or user information; however, given the French Government’s most recent demand from Twitter to provide an easy and accessible platform for the French government to monitor, track, and identify twitter users spreading hate speech in France, I think the next edition of the report, due out in 6 months, will be much more interesting.