Reddit Transparency Report Details Government Requests In 2018

Reddit has released its transparency report for the year 2018, detailing the number and types of requests it received, including ones sent by governments around the world. For its latest report, the company has included information about retractions, restorations, and copyright removals, plus info on when it removed content in violation of its Content Policy.

Reddit saw an increase in government requests in 2018, according to the transparency report, which lists 752 total requests seeking either the production or preservation of user data. Of those requests, 171 sought to preserve the data, while the remaining 581 requested production of user data.

According to Reddit, it only pays attention to the preservation requests that come from the US. Assuming such a request is found to be valid, the company takes a "snapshot" of the account data, after which point Reddit will keep the info for up to 90 days before purging it. Of the preservation requests it received, Reddit complied with 91-percent of them.

As far as production requests are concerned, Reddit provided user account data in 77-percent of cases. The 581 production requests it received in 2018 represent a 151-percent increase compared to 2017; the number has increased steadily every year since the 2015 transparency report.

In addition, Reddit saw a 470-percent increase in Emergency Disclosure Requests from various governments, the number sitting at 234. Reddit says it complied with 69-percent of the requests. Only 27 of those emergency disclosure requests originated from outside of the US. The full transparency report is available here.