Rest of World: ‘Twitter Is Complying With More Government Demands Under Elon Musk’

Rest of World:

It’s been exactly six months since Elon Musk took over Twitter, promising a new era of free speech and independence from political bias. But Twitter’s self-reported data shows that, under Musk, the company has complied with hundreds more government orders for censorship or surveillance — especially in countries such as Turkey and India.

The data, drawn from Twitter’s reports to the Lumen database, shows that between October 27, 2022 and April 26, 2023, Twitter received a total of 971 requests from governments and courts. These requests included orders to remove controversial posts, as well as demands that Twitter produce private data to identify anonymous accounts. Twitter reported that it fully complied in 808 of those requests, and partially complied in 154 other cases. (For nine requests, it did not report any specific response.)

Free speech!

See also: Mike Masnick at Techdirt:

This isn’t a transparency report. It’s an obfuscation report. And, if Elon is correct that “transparency is the key to trust,” this report suggests you shouldn’t trust Twitter one bit.

★ Friday, 28 April 2023