Twitter reports huge increase in government data requests

From InfoWorld: Governments are becoming hungrier for Twitter data, increasing the number of requests for user information by 40 percent between the first half and the second half of 2014.

"Providing this level of transparency is not without its complications and sometimes means we get tough questions and criticism about our decisions," wrote Jeremy Kessel, Twitter's senior manager for global legal policy, in a blog post Monday.

Twitter received 2,871 account information requests from various governments, targeting 7,144 accounts, during the second half of 2014, and the company complied in 52 percent of the cases, it said in a new transparency report.

Russia, Turkey and the U.S. were among the countries where requests for Twitter user information increased significantly.

Twitter received more than 100 requests for account information from the Russian government in the second half of 2014, from previously "having never received a request," Kessel wrote. Twitter declined to honor any of the Russian requests.

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