US court says Twitter can’t disclose FBI demands for user info

The FBI pushed back, ordering Twitter not to publish its Transparency Report because it included classified information that would harm national security if released. — Photo by Amy Osborne/AFP

LOS ANGELES: Twitter may not publicly quantify the number of times the FBI demands user information from it for national security investigations, a US federal appellate court ruled Monday.

The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FBI was justified in blocking the social media giant from publishing aggregate counts of such requests in its biannual "Transparency Report” online because doing so could jeopardize national security.