"Take it down': India's requests to social media firms at record highs

Twitter got the biggest rise in govt demand about content, compared to the pre-pandemic period

- SACHIN P MAMPATTA

Twitter's decision to go to court against the Indian government's requests to take down content has come after a surge in such demands by the state.

Government requests to technology platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google for removing content is up significantly compared to an equivalent period in 2019, shows an analysis of data from the companies' periodic disclosures. India's requests for content removal on Twitter for the six months ending June 2021 are up more than 350 per cent from the figure in the same period for 2019. User information requests are up nearly 873 percent compared to the 2019 figure.

Another way to look at such requests is to take the average of the period since the pandemic began, and compare it to the pre-pandemic numbers.