Twitter sees jump in govt demands to remove content of journalists, news outlets

NEW DELHI: Twitter Inc saw a surge in demands over the course of last year from governments around the world to take down content posted by journalists and news outlets, data to be released by the social media platform for the first time will show.

In its transparency report to be published on Wednesday and a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Twitter said verified accounts of 199 journalists and news outlets on its platform globally were subject to 361 legal demands from governments to remove content in the second half of 2020, an increase of 26% from the first half of the year.

It declined to elaborate on which countries submitted the demands, or how many of the legal demands pertaining to journalists or news outlets the platform complied with.