Twitter said it had received an increase of legal demands from governments worldwide for the removal of posts from journalists and news outlets during the second half of 2020.
The social media company made the disclosure in its latest transparency report published Thursday.
Twitter said about 199 accounts owned by verified news sites and journalists were subject to 361 legal demands submitted by governments and private individuals. The company said the number of legal demands increased by 26% when compared with the same period in the previous year.
According to its report, the countries with the highest number of requests to take down Twitter news content were India, Turkey, Pakistan and Russia. India was at the top of the list with 128 requests, followed by Turkey with 108 requests, Pakistan with 52 requests and Russia with 28 requests.
Twitter said five posts from verified news outlet accounts were withheld - one from France and four from Brazil.
"Twitter filed legal objections for court orders from Turkey that involved verified journalists or news outlets, arguing that those decisions are contrary to Turkish protections of freedom of the press. None of those objections were successful during this reporting period," the company said.
For the second half of 2020, Twitter said it had received 38,524 legal demands to take down content worldwide. Overall, this was a 9% decrease when compared with the number of legal demands received over the same period in 2019.
"Although there was a 9% decrease in the number of legal demands received, these requests sought removal of the largest number of accounts ever in a reporting period since releasing our first transparency report in 2012," Twitter said.
Several countries with differing religious, political and world views have moved to restrict access to social media websites. According to Reuters, both Cuba and Nigeria have already banned several social media websites. Earlier in the week, Cuba blocked messaging applications from Telegram and Facebook. Last Month, Nigeria banned Twitter throughout the country.
