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Twitter said in its first transparency report that the number of government requests for user information or to block content is rising in 2012. "We've received more government requests in the first half of 2012, as outlined in this initial dataset, than in the entirety of 2011," Twitter's legal policy manager Jeremy Kessel said in a blog post on Monday. The overwhelming number of requests came from the United States, accounting for 679 of the 849 requests for user information. In 75 per cent of the US cases, Twitter gave some or all information.

Google and the Google-owned YouTube received more than 10,000 requests for user data from government agencies in the six months ending Dec. 31, 2009, according to newly released data.

"Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about users of our services and products," Google says on a new site that sheds more light onto government demands for user information and requests to take offensive material off the Web.

Google only gave the Brazilian government information in 76% of the 1,804 cases in which the country requested it, and for only 72% of the U.K.’s 1,162 requests. It took an even stronger line against countries like Poland, Hungary and Turkey, giving over data in only 33 times out of the 272 in which Poland requested it, and in none of the 45 Turkish or 68 Hungarian requests.

The U.S. government has asked Twitter to hand over private messages sent to and from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and other WikiLeaks staffers.

Google now posts regular "Transparency Reports" the include not only private content removal requests but also requests made by the US Government via court orders and law enforcement officials. The breakdown shows requests to remove content (mostly on YouTube) due to various reasons such as violence, privacy, and defamation.

The most interesting stat is that Google has complied with only 42% of the requests.

IRS to monitor Facebook, Twitter for tax cheats

Is the IRS about to get too close for comfort? New reports brought to light by one privacy and data security expert suggest that this tax filing season the Internal Revenue Service may be monitoring social media for any clues of tax cheats.

According to Kristen Mathews, a partner attorney at law firm Proskauer Rose LLP who specializes in privacy and data security, there are reports that the IRS will be checking into individual Facebook and Twitter accounts for improprieties.

When you use the Internet, you entrust your conversations, thoughts, experiences, locations, photos, and more to companies like Google, AT&T and Facebook. But what do these companies do when the government demands your private information? Do they stand with you? Do they let you know what’s going on?

For example, which companies require a warrant to give up your data? Which ones will even bother to tell you when your data has been "requested"?

These days, with Facebook and Twitter and social media galore, it can be increasingly hard to tell who your “friends” are.

But after this, Internet users would be well advised to ask another question entirely: Are my “friends” even real people?

So, Pennsylvania's AG Tom Corbett, who just won the Republican primary nomination for Governor on Tuesday, is pressuring Twitter to reveal the names and contact info of two Twitter users who have been critical of him. Will the fascism never end? Oopps.... better watch what I say online, since I live in PA. Obersturmbannführer Corbett might target me next....