In the wake of citizen backlash against tech companies who play nice with surveillance agencies, Facebook is divulging for the first time government requests for user data, citing its "core values" of "transparency and trust."
Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch in a Tuesday blog post gave a country-by-country overview of government requests during the first half of 2013. Not surprisingly, the U.S. topped the list with 11,000 to 12,000 requests pertaining to more than 20,000 user accounts. Facebook was required by law to fulfill 79 percent of the federal government's requests by providing at least some data.
The report offers a first look at the volume of requests Facebook deals with, but not much in the way of detail. Stretch said Facebook hopes to be even more detailed in future reports, but with national security on the line, it seems unlikely that the social network will be able to disclose information about specific requests.
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