Twitter Abruptly Stops Reporting On Gov’t Requests As Data Reveals Elon Obeys Gov’t Demands Way More Often Than Old Twitter
from the whatever-elon-has-said,-he's-done-the-opposite dept
To hear Elon and his biggest fans tell the story, pre-Elon Twitter was a hellhole of censorship often driven by government demands, and he had to take over the company to “bring free speech back.” As astute observers not easily misled by nonsense peddlers knew, however, in actuality, old Twitter was actually one of the most welcoming platforms to speech that other platforms refused to host, and was among the most aggressive at pushing back on government demands.
Twitter’s transparency reports on this were clear. Just looking at the last transparency report released before Elon took over, you can see this quite clearly. On requests for information from governments around the globe, it only complied with around 40%:
And when it came to government demands to remove information whether by court order or other government demands, its compliance rate was around 51% globally:
If you dig into the details, not surprisingly, you find that the variation country to country is significant. So, from here, you can see the countries that sent the most legal demands over the period of that report (second half of 2021):
From that, you can see that Twitter complied with just 20% of requests from India, and 44% of the requests from Japan.
Clearly, the company made a real effort to evaluate the requests and their legal merit before making a decision.
Now, as we just reported, Twitter under Elon has stopped doing transparency reports, though it did release a ridiculous blog post that wasn’t “transparent” at all and literally said: “Twitter’s compliance rate for these requests varied by requester country.” But provided no actual data on the compliance rate at all.
Thankfully, Russel Brandom over at Rest of World, realized that Twitter has still been automatically reporting government demand info to the good folks at the LumenDatabase… and from that found that Elon’s Twitter has been way more compliant in giving in to exactly what governments are demanding, both for removing content and for handing over information. And, from the look of things, governments are fucking thrilled with this, seeing as the numbers of demands went way, way up.
That last column is “post-Elon.” So, again, Elon’s Twitter is now doing the very nonsense that Elon and his fans falsely thought old Twitter did. We already knew that Elon had caved in and was agreeing to take down accounts from journalists and activists in India, which old Twitter had drawn a line and said it refused to cross.
Notably, and importantly, just as Brandom was doing this research, Twitter abruptly stopped sharing this data:
“Historically, it seems Twitter has sent a copy of everything they’ve received to us,” says Adam Holland, who manages the project for the Berkman-Klein center. “My understanding is that they have a small team of people that work on this and it’s a largely automatic process.”
The biggest irregularity came earlier this month when Twitter’s self-reports abruptly stopped. After averaging over a hundred copyright claims a day, the flow of new reports halted on April 15th, and Twitter has not made a submission to the database in 12 days.
After the article went up, Lumen put out a statement on Mastodon noting that Twitter had deliberately stopped sharing as their “data sharing policies are under review” and that “they will update Lumen once there is more information.”
So… as Elon has promised to be more about free speech and transparency, and less about giving in to government censorship and surveillance requests, the reality is that, once again, he’s done literally the opposite of that.
Filed Under: elon musk, government requests, lumen database, surveillance, takedowns, transparency, transparency reports
Companies: twitter
Comments on “Twitter Abruptly Stops Reporting On Gov’t Requests As Data Reveals Elon Obeys Gov’t Demands Way More Often Than Old Twitter”
I love how this actual data from Twitter/Elon saying he gives into government demands and yet his apologists here on techdirt are going to come in and complain instead that Masnick is Anti-Elon and this is really some 4D chess where Elon uses his compliance to the government to show that he is really all for stopping government overreach and that he will reveal his master plan to the faithful shortly.
I would love to see Matt (both of them) spin this news.
Re: Takedowns
According to a recent interview, the U.S. government had direct access to DMs and accounts from users. They didn’t need to request anything, at least from what Musk said.
So these numbers probably aren’t accurately reflecting information assuming he’s telling the truth.
Re: Re:
Yeah, about that… If the US Government had such access then the content of the “Twitter Files” doesn’t make any sense at all.
All we have about this supposed “access” is something Musk said in an interview and I can’t come up with a single compelling reason to believe what he says is true.
Re: Re:
Why don’t you have any factual source for your claim?
Re: Re:
Why would anyone assume he’s telling the truth, when his track record re: Twitter is to stack falsehoods on top of misrepresentation?
You might also notice that most of what’s recorded here isn’t the US government. He is still complying with more requests from authoritarian regimes outside the US…
Re: Re:
That lie has already been debunked:
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/18/elon-musk-is-full-of-shit-again-no-federal-agencies-did-not-have-full-access-to-dms/
SOP for Elon
Rules for thee and not for me.
Re:
So much for the “no lords and peasants” system he promised.
Re: Re:
Elon thinks he’s a Henry II, but in actual fact, he’s a John.
And even that’s a stretch because At least John was a capable administrator. Elon is not.
Re: Re: Re:
LOL, I first thought you were referencing what a sex worker would call their clients…
Which would also be appropriate.
Re: Re: Re:2
Or a toilet. Which–like a prostitute’s client–fits the description of Elon to a T.
Re: Re: Re:3
You can flush a toilet.
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Techdirt: Has anyone seen the twitter transparency reports?
Me, with a suspiciously twitter transparency report-shaped belly: Mmm, no! I haven’t seen any delicious twitter transparency reports around here! Maybe ask Facebook?
Re:
You had me going there for a moment. But you were entirely too rantless to be the Bennett we all know (and I’ll leave the “and…” part blank, here).
Re: Not to kinkshame, but...
Please take your vore fetish to a more appropriate site.
Re: Re:
You can’t handle the truth.
a few really bad men
You cant handle the truth!
/s
Re:
You… truth mishandlers!
Twitter remains as transparent as a window, only that window has been boarded up as Elon’s decided it’s cheaper than paying to have them cleaned.
Re:
Well, fuck me.
Elon can afford planks and nails?
Re: Re:
If you are not willing to work hardcore [sic], you can always walk the plank.
Re: Re: Re:
Again…
With all the debt Elon loaded onto Twitter, he’s got enough cash to buy some planks and nails?
Or did he just force someone to board up that window?
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It takes effort and money to say "no".
I basically clicked through to see how you were lying or distorting this Masnick, and there it is: The requests have shot up massively the last 6 months. Probably at least partly due to anti-Musk animus (Japan, SK and France are pretty liberal countries)(India seems to be going through a semi-fascist phase and Russia is Russia), Twitter is getting drowned in the legal process. They are not generally free to ignore government orders unless they pull up stakes completely (which I think they should do, actually). Basically no countries besides the US truly have free speech, even though many claim to. (But the US does and what the FBI and CDC did was illegal af)
This ultimately has little if anything to do with Twitter itself.
Fucking Masnick, man. Nice try.
Re:
This is a weak reply, even for you, Matthew.
You don’t even respond to Musk complying with way more takedowns and information grabs. You don’t even try to respond to him shutting off the reporting of those demands.
You just claim the story doesn’t count because the countries are “liberal”? WTF?
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Re: Re:
I did, quite explicitly, you apparently just don’t read well.
Re: Re: Re:
Sure, you basically admitted that he’s loaded them under so much debt that they couldn’t mount a legal defence. Except they don’t have to. Twitter wasn’t constantly fighting lawsuits, it just operated like an organisation with a mission and a spine, instead of being a clearing house for fascist dictatorships to get dirt on their enemies and shut down speech. We can all see what Elmo is actually doing with Twitter (or rather, we could until he stopped the reporting process) – you’re the only one here having trouble accepting the facts.
Re:
…said nobody not admitting to hallucinogen abuse habits, ever.
Re: "Twitter is getting drowned in the legal process."
That’s the best that Matty can come up with. Meanwhile, MelonHusk has more than enough dough to employ any required legal compliance/handling staff. So if Twatter is drowning, it’s because that’s what the big doofus chooses to do.
Re:
Uh, no.
Being economically liberal does not mean they’re socially liberal.
Japan and South Korea are hideously on the right socially. France is also going through an antiliberal moment, courtesy of Putin.
Re: Re:
To be fair, I think he means “pretty liberal compared with what I consider to be ideal”, and we can take that as true if we work from the assumption that Mr Bennett is a fan of far-right dictatorships.
Re:
“Musk is too cheap and lazy to protect twitter users’ free speech” is entirely plausible
Re: Like it owes you 43 billion dollars
How raw is your dick, from beating off to Elon all day long?
Re:
You know that when you describe centre-right and right-wing countries like France, South Korea and freaking Japan as “pretty liberal” you’re just how far-right you (and by proxy Elmo) area, right? You can’t even bring yourself to directly address what India really is (no “semi” about its fascism), and you totally whiff on how they and Russia have every reason to love Musk right now. The only thing getting drowned here is your ad-hoc hypothesis.
After that it’s just deflection and fart-noise city; just thought it was funny to point out to you how much you tell on yourself (and Elmo!) every time you do this.
'Those details make me look bad, hide them!'
Ah Elon the hypocrite, threw fits about how important transparency is and how Twitter was a government stooge and then as soon as he took charge it’s ‘Cave to all the government requests and hide the information showing that!’
If reality makes you look bad the problem isn’t on reality’s side.
Old and new
New Twitter is too. Just different speech.
People using Twitter as a weapon..
security android flow..is a weapon that people on Twitter are using to hurt people..
My Verizon networks stolen and organization and identity
Hey my name is Billy price and I was needing to recover my networks and assets because they have had me in a fake organization because it was a 2 party check and they have been putting money over my head trying to get me put in rehab or prison and make sure I never walk out again alive because they have been making up all the stuff in the stock markets is made up on me and ever penny in the stock markets came from my decized eyes and they married me unwillingly y I was in jail and they have been and they are using my SSN and drawing my income and I was needing to recover my networks and assets