Twitter said it saw an overall increase of 40 percent in government requests for Twitter user account information since the company's last report. While requests to Twitter have increased in many countries, Russia, Turkey, and the United States stand out from the rest. In Russia, Twitter went from having never received a request to receiving more than 100 requests for account information during this reporting period. Twitter did not provide information in response to any of those requests. Requests from Turkey increased over 150 percent. Again, the company did not provide information in response to any of those requests. Meanwhile, the micro-blogging saw a 29 percent increase in requests from the United States, while its compliance rate increased 8 percent. Germany followed with 43 removal requests. Germany's requests were mainly dealing with alleged hate-crimes, according to Twitter.

The figures are likely to reinforce fears of a crackdown on Internet freedom in the predominantly Muslim NATO state where Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said he is determined to stamp out what he sees as illegal online activities.