Facebook reveals government requests to access users accounts
Culture
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If it baffles recent battles with the FBI had you worried about your privacy.
Well, it turns out we were just getting warmed up.
In its global government request report, Facebook reveals it received almost 50,000 government requests for user data in the last six months of 2015.
Topping the list of these inquisitive countries India and the United States.
In these cases, user data can mean anything from their IP address to their actual wall posts.
And while we as users are relinquishing our privacy it seems like the US government is worried about keeping its own anonymity as 60% of these requests came with non-disclosure agreements, meaning your account could have been accessed without you even knowing it.
And even if your account wasn't accessed, the government can still ask Facebook to block certain posts If they violate local laws.
During the recent terrorist attack in France, Facebook got hit with 32,000 block requests from the French government to remove a photo.
In this specific case it was to preserve the dignity of the victims but there can be a fine line between this and censorship.
This is the first time Facebook has shared this data publicly and stated it scrutinizes each request for user data they receive for legal sufficiency.
If a request appears to be deficient or overly broad, they push back hard and will fight in court if necessary.
For a network of over 1.6 billion users, 50,000 requests may not seem like a lot.
But judging by the numbers It's a practice that appears to be on the rise and that should be more than enough to make you rethink your next post.
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