EFF: Facebook Should Be Transparent About U.S. Takedown Requests

Maass in a blog post Thursday. That this information is missing in the U.S. is “odd, considering that Facebook has been suspending the accounts of inmates for at least four years at the behest of prison officials,” he said. EFF’s issue isn’t about prisoner accounts removed from Facebook, but EFF is concerned if the company isn’t reporting these takedown requests that it's censoring other information as well, Maass said. In California and South Carolina alone, more than 700 takedowns were requested for accounts belonging to prisoners, he said. Even if EFF or another outlet filed a public records request in all 50 states, the true number of prisoner takedowns Facebook complied with may not be known because “Facebook’s system allowed prisons to file these requests without creating a paper trail,” Maass said. In EFF’s annual scorecard evaluating how companies handle government requests, Google and Twitter transparency efforts were applauded, he said. While EFF was preparing its 2015 report, “we gave Facebook multiple opportunities to come clean about government requests to suppress content,” he said. Facebook “did overhaul its inmate takedown process,” but “refuses to release top line numbers for the United States,” Maass said. He urged Facebook to “publish the data and show U.S. government agencies that censorship shouldn’t happen in the dark.” The company didn't comment.