Reddit released its first transparency report

Reddit, the popular social news site/message board styled “the front page of the internet”, has released its first transparency report.

As it turns out, in 2014 they received 55 requests for user information (registration data, log data, content uploaded by users) and no National Security Letters or any other classified request for user information.

Of the total, only 58% of all government and civil requests and 64% of all US state and federal government requests were fulfilled. No international requests (5 in all) were fulfilled: “Reddit is a US-based company. As such, we will not turn over user information in response to a formal request by a non-US government unless a US court requires it,” they shared.

Even though Reddit counts over 174 million registered users, the relatively small number of requests for user information is likely due to the fact that there is little information to share. Users who want to register are only asked to provide a working email address and choose a password and a username.

Also, Reddit does retain the IP addresses from which each user connects to the site, but only for 90 days.

The report also contains information about the requests for removal of user information that were submitted. Of the 218 requests – either for copyright or trademark infringement, or other reasons (for example alleged defamation) – only 68 were successful.

“We received many copyright takedown requests for entire subreddits. We (and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act – DMCA) require specific identification of allegedly infringing content, not broad demands to delete entire reddit communities,” they noted.