Facebook receives record number of user-data demands from governments

Facebook received 128,617 user data requests from governments during the first half of 2019, according to its latest Transparency Report

Facebook received a record number of government demands for user data during the first half of 2019, according to its latest Transparency Report.

Released overnight, the report indicates that government data demands surged 16 per cent to 128,617 during the first six months of 2019, compared to the second half of 2018.

The social media giant received 50,741 requests from the US government, of which two-thirds came with gag orders, preventing Facebook from telling individual users about those requests.

In response, the company handed over data to US authorities in about 88 per cent of the cases.

Two-thirds came with gag orders, preventing Facebook from telling individual users about those requests

For the first time, Facebook also included Instagram in its content moderation report, disclosing how it moderates content related to self-harm, child exploitation, drug sales and terrorist propaganda.

Facebook said it deleted nearly 3.2 billion fake accounts between April and September this year, more than double the number of fake accounts removed during the same period last year (about 1.55 million).

In addition, nearly 11.6 million content pieces showing child nudity and exploitation were removed from Facebook platform during the third quarter of 2019, up from the first and second quarters when Facebook removed about 5.8 million and 512,000 such content pieces.

Nearly 754,000 pieces were removed from Instagram in Q3 2019 for showing child abuse content.

On Instagram, nearly 1.5 million content pieces linked to drug sales were removed

If talking about drug sale content, Facebook removed about 4.4 million such pieces In Q3 2019, up from Q1 2019 when 841,000 drug sale content pieces were removed.

On Instagram, nearly 1.5 million content pieces linked to drug sales were removed during the third quarter of 2019.

In the area of hate speech, Facebook said it removed 80 per cent of hate content before it was reported by users.

"We are going to keep publishing these reports so people can see the scale of these issues and hold us accountable for improving our systems," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a press conference held on Wednesday.

"This work is never finished," he added.

Facebook's transparency report at time when thousands of leaked documents, including Facebook's internal emails and presentations, showed how the company tried to control competitors and help friends by offering - or withholding - user data.

The documents, which mostly originated during 2011-2015, were leaked from a civil suit filed against Facebook by Six4Three, now defunct start-up that created a failed app named 'Pikinis'.