April 24, 2016

Semi-Raw Data: Top Ten Countries by Twitter Removal Requests

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The number of official requests to remove Twitter content is growing fast. In the first half of 2015, Twitter received 1,013 requests. In the second half they received four times as many, 4,618. This includes removal requests from both court orders and government agencies.

So which country is most active at censoring Twitter? In absolute numbers, Turkey is the winner by a mile, with 2,211 requests in the second half of 2015. Recep Tayyip Erdo?an really, really doesn’t like to be insulted.

But if you adjust for number of Twitter users, Turkey comes in second. I had to guess at the number of Twitter users in Mongolia, but even guessing conservatively they amassed an impressive 555 removal requests per million Twitter users. I’m not sure what that’s all about.

Among Western countries, France is the leader by a bunch, with 47 removal requests per million users. The US and Britain, which have high absolute numbers thanks to their very high Twitter usage, clock in at a fairly modest 2.5 requests per million Twitter users.

Take these numbers with a big grain of salt. First off, it’s hard to get good data on Twitter users per country. I think I’m in the right ballpark, but there are definitely some large error bars on this data. Second, removal requests don’t have to be aimed only at a country’s own Twitter users. Countries like the US and France likely have a fairly worldwide approach to this sort of thing.

Still, this gives you at least a rough idea of which countries are most active at trying to remove both Twitter accounts and individual tweets. Comments?

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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