WASHINGTON: Twitter said on Tuesday that it received more than 16,000 government information requests for user data from over 85 countries in the first half of 2022 alone.

"Twitter received over 16,000 government information requests for user data from over 85 countries during the reporting period. Disclosure rates vary by requester country," the social network said in a press release, reported Sputnik.

The United States, France, Japan, Germany and India were the top five requesting countries for the period, the release said.

Twitter also received about 53,000 legal requests from governments around the world to remove content, with the majority of requests coming from Japan, South Korea, Turkey, and India, the release added.

In the first half of 2022, Twitter required users to remove 6,586,109 pieces of content that violated the company's rules - an increase of 29 per cent from the second half of 2021, according to the release.

-- BERNAMA