Transparency and user empowerment are two of our guiding principles at Twitter. Twice a year, Twitter publishes a transparency report that includes details about the government and non-government requests we receive. Our legal request FAQ details the approach we take, including a review of the reported account or Tweets for any indications that the request seeks to restrict or chill freedom of expression; raises other Twitter policy concerns (e.g., accounts belonging to journalists, verified accounts, or accounts containing political speech); or raises practical or technical concerns (e.g., the account or content at issue is no longer available).

To further our transparency efforts, we established a partnership with the Lumen project (formerly Chilling Effects) in 2010. Lumen is an independent third party research project studying cease and desist letters concerning online content. They collect and analyse complaints about online activity, especially requests to remove content. Unless we are prevented from doing so, when we withhold content in a certain country (and also for DMCA notices), Twitter will provide a copy of the request to Lumen so anyone can see what type of content was removed and who made the request.