Facebook Inc said in a report on Wednesday that government demands for its user data surged in the first half of 2015, taking a trend that began at least two years ago when the company started revealing such requests to new heights.
India is far and away the country that bans the most content on Facebook, the social network’s transparency report for the six months between January and July 2015 has revealed.
In that time, India had the viewing of 15,155 pieces of content restricted to its residents, according to Facebook, more than three times the 4,496 pieces of content banned in Turkey, the next most restrictive nation, with France being the third-highest with 285 content restrictions.
“We restricted access in India to a number of pieces of content reported primarily by law enforcement officials and the ICERT under local laws prohibiting criticism of a religion or the state.”
“Requests are scrutinized to determine if the specified content does indeed violate local laws. If, after a thorough legal analysis, we determine that the content appears to violate local law, then we make it unavailable in the relevant country or territory,” they further added.
According with stats Facebook have about 100 million of users from India, which is in second position after US 182 million.
For the same six-month period last year, India again made the highest number of content restrictions with 4,960 blocks on content.
India was also the country with the second-highest number of requests for user data, with 5,115 requests made between January and July that referenced 6,268 user accounts. Facebook said it handed over data to Indian authorities in 45 percent of cases.
The United States continued to be the nation with the most requests for user data, making 17,577 requests that referenced 26,579 user accounts. Data was produced for US authorities 80 percent of the time.
Compared with this time last year, the US was up on the 15,433 requests made in the first six months of 2014, with its success rate in obtaining data remaining steady.
Following the US and India was the United Kingdom with 3,384 requests and a 78 percent success rate, France obtained data 43 percent of the time with its 2,520 requests, and Germany only had a 36 percent strike rate from 2,344 requests.