India has become the number one country in the world to make maximum requests for content censorship on Facebook. The world’s largest social revealed in its Second Transparency Report that the Indian Government made 3,598 requests and asked for access to over 4,711 accounts.
Out of the total, Facebook produced data for 53.66 percent of requests. In comparison, the US sought information on 18,715 Facebook accounts, but it did not ask the social networking website to censor any content. This was followed by the UK with 1,906 requests, 71 percent of which were granted.
The report which covers the period between July and December of last year also revealed requests made by the Indian Government to restrict or remove content based on contention that it violated the local law. It stated that while US reported most requests for user accounts, India stood second on the list in terms of requests made to get access to user accounts. Facebook censored 4,765 pieces of content in India at the request of government authorities in the second half of 2013. The Turkish government came second in that list with 2,104 requests.
In total, Facebook received more than 28,000 government data requests during July-December 2013. In a blog post accompanying the report, Colin Stretch, the company’s general counsel wrote.
Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share, and to make the world more open and connected. Sometimes, the laws of a country interfere with that mission, by limiting what can be shared there.
India is the second largest country after the US on Facebook with more than 100 million monthly active users. Other internet giants like Twitter, Google and Yahoo have also started publishing their transparency report.
Via: Ibn live