Twitter refuses to disclose user identity To Turkey to protect freedom of expression.

Twitter refuses to disclose user identity To Turkey to protect freedom of expression.(TZ).

Twitter, the phenomenal microblogging website, is on Turkey's agenda mainly because the government is waging a war on the anonymous whistleblower Fuat Avni (@fuatavnifuat), but the resilience Twitter has shown in protecting user information is not only limited to cases in Turkey, the company says.

Nu Wexler, from Twitter's public policy communications department, told Today's Zaman that Twitter has never shared any user information with the Turkish government, as stated in the transparency reports of the company on its website. These reports display information about government requests to Twitter, including how much information a particular government asks for. In the first half of 2014 only, Turkey requested content removal with 65 court decisions as well as the user information of 24 accounts.

Wexler says Twitter does not comment specifically on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons, but they have legal guidelines for certain information that requires court decisions. "Our transparency report shows we have never turned over private user data to the Turkish government," said Wexler. In a recent example, Turkey asked Twitter to remove the account of the BirGün daily. Read the full story here.