India tops countries censoring Facebook content

Facebook removed thousands of pieces of content at the request of various countries' governments in the last half of 2013.

India took the lead, with 4,765 pieces of content removed by Facebook from July to December 2013, according to the social network's latest transparency report released Friday.

Facebook said it removes content when it violates local law. One example cited by Facebook: Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany.

Countries with most content censored by Facebook in the last half of 2013 are:

• India: 4,765 content restrictions

• Turkey: 2,014

• Pakistan: 162

• Israel: 113

• Germany: 84

• France: 80

The report on censorship is part of Facebook's second official transparency report, which documents countries' requests for Facebook content and users.

MORE:Top 10 Internet-censored countries

"When we receive a government request seeking to enforce those laws, we review it with care, and, even where we conclude that it is legally sufficient, we only restrict access to content in the requesting country," wrote Colin Stretch, Facebook's general counsel, in a blog post.

Requests for information do not always translate into censorship. For example, in the last half of 2013, the United States made more than 12,500 requests for Facebook users' data, but no content was restricted, according to the Facebook report.

Facebook said the "vast majority" of data requests are related to criminal cases, such as robberies or kidnappings.

"In many of these cases, these government requests seek basic subscriber information, such as name, registration date and length of service. Other requests may also seek IP address logs or account content," according to Facebook.

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