MENLO PARK, California – Facebook, the leading social media giant, has released their transparency reports for the first 6 months of 2017. The social media giant has stated that the government makes more information requests on users than before.
The government requests were up by 21 percent.
Due to the recent legislation, Facebook is able to divulge the existence of the five letters containing national security information. It is a tool that are used by law enforcement in secretly obtaining information of individuals. These five national security letters were received from the FBI offices located in Virginia, California, Michigan, and Florida around 2012 and 2015.
Also, the company released requests of information that is related to a person’s intellectual property, which covers trademark, counterfeit, and copyright laws.
Facebook believes that sharing such information from the right holders is a vital step in being more transparent and clear on how they protect the individuals and businesses that use the services of their company.
The US government had made a total of 32,716 requests for information from the company, with 57 percent of requests with a demand for confidentiality.
The requests asked the data of 52,280 users, and Facebook provided the 85 percent of the information.
The requests are up by 25.7 percent from 26,014 requests that were made in the last half of the year 2016, which covered a number of 41,492 users wherein the company had provided data on 83.4 percent.
Facebook also received 352,889 copyright complaints during in the first half of 2017.
Facebook had restricted a video of a school shooting that happened in Mexico for 20,506 times after it had received a request from the Mexican government. The number is immensely large since the company only restricts local law violations for a total of 28,000 times, so the 20,506 is 72 percent of the restrictions in the first six months of the year. Meanwhile, in the last six months of 2016, the company had only restricted contents for 7,000 times.
Each request are carefully scrutinized by the company in making sure it is legal. The company denies giving data if the request seems deficient.
The total number of local law violations that resort to the company’s content restriction increased by 304%, which is compared with the last six months of 2016 ranging from 6,944 to 28,036. The increase in numbers was due to an unforeseen event in January wherein a video showed that a 15-year-old had shot four other students before killing himself. It happened at a private school at Monterrey City.
There were about 52 disruptions that were recorded compared with the 2016’s data with 43 disruptions that happened in 20 countries. The company has stated that it is concerned with Internet disruptions that create barriers in businesses and also prevent people from connecting with their loved ones.
The report made by Facebook on Monday reinforces its commitment in being transparent to the world as they are building a community which brings people closer to each other.
