India among the top four countries that asked Twitter to remove content

India was also among the top nations that asked for Twitter user data last year, according to data shared by the company

India was one of the top countries that made legal requests to remove content from Twitter between January and June last year, the social media company said.

"Around the world, Twitter received approximately 53,000 legal requests to remove content from governments during the reporting period [January - June 2022]," Twitter said in a blog post. 

"Twitter's compliance rate for these requests varied by requester country. The top requesting countries were Japan, South Korea, Turkey and India," it added.

India was also among the top nations that asked for user data last year.

"The top five requesting countries seeking account information in H1 2022 [first half of 2022] were India, the United States, France, Japan, and Germany," the American technology company said.

Twitter's 20th Transparency Report shared that India had submitted the most requests to remove tweets by verified handles of journalists and news outlets between July and December 2021. 

The nation had issued 3,992 legal demands to remove content from Twitter, including those posted by journalists and news organisations.

On April 12, Twitter chief Elon Musk acknowledged that India's rules for social media companies were quite stringent. He had also stated that his company would rather comply with the Indian social media laws than risk having its employees imprisoned.

Twitter has undergone significant changes since Musk took over the company. Last week, the social media company began removing blue tick icons used to verify users' identities on the platform.

The blue tick, previously considered a mark of authenticity for profiles of celebrities, journalists, other prominent figures, organisations and government bodies, will now be available to any user who pays a $8 (over Rs 650) monthly subscription fee.