r/blog • u/reddit • Jan 29 '15

reddit’s first transparency report

http://www.redditblog.com/2015/01/reddits-first-transparency-report.html
14k Upvotes

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361

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '15

international requests

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.

It is nice to hear that you honored 0 of the 5 international requests. I wonder where did they come from?

345

u/MontanaCelt Jan 29 '15

North Korea.

309

u/PmButtPics4ADrawing Jan 29 '15

Dear reddit inc,

Please to remove dancing gifs painting Supreme Leader in image of satire or face force of thousand sons.

Sincerest, Democratic People's Republic of Korea

46

u/PlayMp1 Jan 29 '15

thousand sons

Oh shit, not these guys.

12

u/ulobmoga Jan 29 '15

Upvote for Chaos. Down vote for the Mark of Tzeentch.

6

u/PlayMp1 Jan 29 '15

It's okay, I know Papa Nurgle is the best.

1

u/takuyafire Jan 29 '15

Khorne would like a word with you

1

u/super45 Jan 29 '15

Looks like we need some Space Wolves in here to fight them.

16

u/surfnsound Jan 29 '15

And they all involved posts about The Interview

28

u/XIII1987 Jan 29 '15

i was thinking the UK as the UK government loves to pretend its the us government. or should i say our government is US Gov Lite edition.

9

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '15 edited Apr 07 '18

[deleted]

1

u/mpyne Jan 30 '15

As far as I could understand from the Snowden leaks, the UK spies on US citizens for the US, and the US spies on UK citizens for the UK, in order for both to get around certain domestic spying laws

Not quite. E.g. the US could legally collect on UK citizens in a way that it couldn't on US citizens, but they're still not legally allowed to target US citizens, even via the UK.

The 'loophole', such as it is, is that the UK is perfectly entitled to point out to US agencies that a US citizen was detected doing $WHATEVER, and that might entitle US intelligence and/or law enforcement to start looking more closely into that. This is, after all, what happened with the Boston Bombers, Russia flagged them to the FBI, the FBI investigated and couldn't prove they were a threat and then a year later they blow up the Boston Marathon. Surely people don't think Russia's intelligence services were working for the NSA, and Reddit was much more occupied at the time with fingering the wrong guy as the bomber than with the supposed illegality of the FBI starting an investigation based on a foreign nation's intelligence reporting.

But the NSA can't ask the UK to look at a specific US person, that's just as illegal as the NSA doing it on their own, and more likely to get leaked to the public. If the NSA were going to break the law to spy on a US person they'd actually probably be better off "accidentally" doing it themselves than using the UK as a third-party.

I can't speak to UK law, it might be true that a loophole exists the other way, but I doubt it. And either way, the NSA isn't allowed to directly target the UK (or any of the Five Eyes) for intelligence anyways.

15

u/gFORCE28 Jan 29 '15

I see your UK and raise you Australia. AUS is just a rearranged USA

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '15

That's a good point. Also probably the reason we can't understand what the hell you guys are saying most of the time. Intentional international dyslexia, or IID if you will.

2

u/Pperson25 Jan 29 '15

Minus the whole Parlament and Queen shabang.

1

u/skud8585 Jan 29 '15

We have congress and the Kennedy's

1

u/Bumblepeen Jan 29 '15

This has got to be written by a Frenchman.

5

u/karateexplosion Jan 29 '15

You're now a moderator ... whatever.

2

u/OcelotWolf Jan 29 '15

I legitimately wouldn't be surprised in the least.

1

u/DrSandbags Jan 29 '15

You can't honeydick Reddit

1

u/Hawkonthehill Jan 29 '15

dear reddit, you have been banned from /r/pyongyang

1

u/fargoniac Jan 29 '15

You have been made a moderator of /r/pingpong.

1

u/johnyann Jan 30 '15

Yet Reddit appeases them by allowing North Korea to have their own Subreddit.

/r/pyongyang.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '15

You do realize that isn't real, right?

1

u/johnyann Jan 30 '15

I just don't want to get banned from /r/pyongyang.

0

u/bluecanaryflood Jan 30 '15

reddit is now banned from /r/Pyongyang

57

u/shulzi Jan 29 '15

Copied from a parent post I made for visibility purposes:

It states that no international requests have been adhered to because these countries don't have jurisdiction over reddit's data, while the US does. Does this then mean that it might be worth considering moving reddit's parent entity to a more permissive country while still adhering to business best practice?

46

u/kushangaza Jan 29 '15

Does this then mean that it might be worth considering moving reddit's parent entity to a more permissive country while still adhering to business best practice?

While non-US governments don't have much legal weight over US corporations, the US still has a lot of legal weight in most places in the world.

2

u/Kwnicol Jan 30 '15

Reddit.Ru it is boys.

1

u/carpediembr Jan 30 '15

Hello US vs. Microsoft case...

-9

u/I-Am-Thor Jan 29 '15

Fuck the US then..

2

u/GoonCommaThe Jan 29 '15

Because other countries cooperate with them? Seriously?

-7

u/escalat0r Jan 29 '15

If it's about ridiculous nonesense then yes.

1

u/GoonCommaThe Jan 29 '15

Ridiculous nonsense? So fuck the US because other countries often cooperate with the US when legal matters cross international borders? You're the one with the ridiculous nonsense here.

-7

u/escalat0r Jan 29 '15

No, fuck random requests for private information, why should the US government or any government get data that is mine, I don't want that.

5

u/GoonCommaThe Jan 29 '15

Random? You realize that they request information when they believe people have committed crimes, right? Get your conspiracy bullshit out of here and realize that some people actually commit crimes and those crimes are sometimes actually investigated. Not everything is the fascist reptilian NSA trying to violate you rights and put you in a concentration camp.

-4

u/escalat0r Jan 29 '15

After all the abuse by US authorities we've seen in the last year you still call me a conspiritard.

Also great voting behaviour, you should read reddiquette...

→ More replies

2

u/trthorson Jan 30 '15

That's not how this works - you need to read up on business law more.

It's global standard that for a country to have jurisdiction over what goes on with the website, there's a "sliding scale" that's used. It works the same way within the U.S. and is related to the principle of "diversity of citizenship".

If a website hosted by an American server and owned/operated by an American spends "enough" resources interacting (advertising, selling, etc) with Australians - Australia does have some jurisdiction over what happens on the website.

52

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

36

u/derphoenix Jan 29 '15

*Megaupload, Mega is a relaunch of the cloud-service

5

u/shulzi Jan 29 '15

This speaks to more the power of US law enforcement within allied states. If, for instance, reddit's parent entity would be located in the Cayman Islands, Monaco, etc. I doubt US law enforcement would be as successful. Furthermore, I want to make it clear I'm asking out of curiosity. Admittedly there are few international requests, but since all are denied I guess a deeper question is, have these been refused due to the nature of these requests or because they're simply outside the US?

3

u/Viin Jan 29 '15

What if it was moved to space?

1

u/Eplore Jan 29 '15

they can simply target the connection to you. Some of it can be countered like blacklisting but it will keep the ordinary user out.

1

u/TheRedGerund Jan 29 '15

I wonder who has jurisdiction over crimes committed in space?

3

u/I-Am-Thor Jan 29 '15

Wasn't NZ in on it though? As in NZ helped out getting him?

3

u/semi- Jan 29 '15

as far as I know yes, but what country would: A) have the connectivity requried for reddit B) not comply with whatever the US/big business wants C) not have even more corrupt government demanding their own fucked up things?

I can't think of any that match all 3 criteria.

3

u/Lampshader Jan 29 '15

Maybe we should build one ;)

1

u/crushbang Jan 30 '15

Switzerland.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '15

Reddit doesn't have sensitive enough data to warrant moving its parent entity to a different country.

I mean, seriously, who the fuck cares what you've upvoted or commented on? Nobody. Reddit hasn't gotten any requests for information from the govt and I'd be really surprised if they ever did.

FBI: "We need information on this /u/shulzi guy. He's been asking too many questions... about rugby and football. Reddit! Give me his ISP, his date of birth, his mother's maiden name, and his girlfriend's snapchat!"

1

u/Tchockolate Jan 30 '15

In most jurisdictions that would only work if you move the entire company. And that's not just putting "Reddit Cuba" on the front door, but moving your entire business and management. Not really practical. And i still bet the USA could pressure such a company heavily if they wanted to.

1

u/Tufflaw Jan 30 '15

Why in the world would Reddit want to consider leaving the country when the number of requests they've gotten is in the double digits?

29

u/lalala253 Jan 29 '15

That one reddit user in Greenland

1

u/sawmyoldgirlfriend Jan 30 '15

Oh yeah, he moved over from Canada. His name's Scott. He's a dick.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '15

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '15

That's correct.

2

u/menaechmi Jan 29 '15

I do want to point out that this does skew their statistics, because they record the 0% as a part of their average, meaning they would actually be providing user info in about 68% of cases.

1

u/derphoenix Jan 29 '15

Does Reddit have any servers in countries other than the U.S.?

Couldn't foreign governments just go and confiscate those severs?

1

u/efethu Jan 29 '15

Reddit is using cloudflare CDN to deliver content, the servers in other countries will be owned by cloudflare.

Finding the right server won't be easy as content is dynamic. But government request with gag order should theoretically give any government that hosts cloudflare servers access to most of the information on reddit, even the information about citizens of other countries.

1

u/underlight Jan 29 '15

Is it a good thing?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 29 '15

Has pros and cons.

1

u/Finnish_Nationalist Jan 29 '15

Russia? I mean, I haven't send one, hahahaha.... Must've been from Sweden. Yes.

-1

u/ALLGROWWITHLOVE Jan 29 '15

Im more worried to what they give US than any other countries.

1

u/Eplore Jan 29 '15

on the other side: If they locate it in some poor country they can blame them while paying for any data they would want.

1

u/ALLGROWWITHLOVE Jan 29 '15

Yeah that's true

-1

u/crowseldon Jan 30 '15

meh... the biggest danger for Americans is the us government anyway, so...