Facebook restricted access to nearly 6,000 pieces of information on its website in India during July-December 2014 period, the highest for any country, following requests from government and other agencies to act against hate-content on the social media platform.
In its Global Government Requests Report for the second half of 2014, the social media platform said 5,832 pieces of content was restricted in the country during the period. This number is higher that 4,960 pieces of content restricted during January-June 2014 period.
The governments usually contact Facebook to restrict access to content on the site that they believe violates their laws.
“We restricted access in India to content reported primarily by law enforcement agencies and the India Computer Emergency Response Team within the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, including anti-religious content and hate speech that could cause unrest and disharmony," the California-based firm said.
India is followed by Turkey at 3,624 number of pieces of restricted content, Germany (60), Russia (55) and Pakistan (54).
India made 5,473 requests for account data in the six months ending December 2014, second only to the United States, which made 14,274 requests in the same period.
According to Facebook, government officials sometimes make requests for data about people who use Facebook as part of official investigations.
The vast majority of these requests relate to criminal cases like robberies or kidnappings. In many of these cases, government requests seek basic subscriber information such as name and length of service. Other requests have asked for IP address logs or actual account content, it said.
Requests for data and content restriction made by India
Time period | Requests for user data | Requests for content restriction |
July to December 2014 | 5,473 | 5,832 |
January to June 2014 | 4,559 | 4,960 |
July to December 2013 | 3,598 | 4,765 |
January to June 2013 | 3,245 | - |
The entire report of Facebook can be accessed >here .
