Social media firm Facebook on Thursday revealed that it has restricted access to 878 items in India during the second half of 2020 in response to directions from the IT Ministry for violating Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, including content against security of the state and public order. Of these, 10 were restricted temporarily and access to 54 items in compliance with court orders, it added.
“In response to an order from Justice Alexandre de Moraes of Brazil’s Supreme Court related to 12 profiles and Pages of supporters of Brazilian President Bolsonaro, we restricted access globally to this content, including in India,” Facebook said.
In its latest transparency report, the US-based company said that it has received 40,300 requests from the Indian government for user data in the second half of 2020. This was 13.3% higher from the January-June 2020 period when India had made 35,560 total requests.
According to the report, out of 40,300 total requests made in the July-December 2020 period, 37,865 were legal process requests and 2,435 were emergency disclosure requests.
The number of total requests made by India ranked second to the US, which had made 61,262 requests during the July-December 2020 period.
Globally, government requests for user data increased by about 10% to 1,91,013 in the second half of 2020 from 1,73,592 in the first half of 2020.
Information related to 62,754 users/accounts were requested in India, and some data was produced for 52% of the requests.
“Facebook responds to government requests for data in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service. Each and every request we receive is carefully reviewed for legal sufficiency and we may reject or require greater specificity on requests that appear overly broad or vague,” Facebook said.
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