Wikipedia has received 304 requests to alter or remove content in the last two years, the organisation has revealed – and has refused every one.
But the online encyclopaedia admitted that it had provided user information to authorities on eight occasions.
The organisation also revealed over 50 links to Wikipedia content have been removed from certain Google searches.
Efforts towards transparency
The figures came at the launch of Wikipedia’s annual conference Wikimania, held for the first time in London.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales launched the publication of Wikimedia’s first ever Transparency Report, along with its first statement on the European Court of Justice’s “right to be forgotten” laws.
The statement, from Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director Lila Tretikov, says the result of the ruling is “an internet riddled with Orwell’s memory holes – places where inconvenient information simply disappears”.
It accused the European court of abandoning “its responsibility to protect one of the most important and universal rights: the right to seek, receive, and impart information”.
Requests for data
Out of 56 requests for user data Wikipedia granted eight, affecting 11 user accounts.
All eight requests that were granted came from criminal and civil subpoenas, and all eight were from the USA.
However, the majority of requests received that were not granted were informal government or non-government requests – no governmental requests came from the US.
The Wikimedia Foundation stressed that the numbers of requests received and granted were far lower than those of Facebook, Google or Twitter, and that these other organisations don’t include as many types of requests as Wikimedia.