Crowd-sourced encyclopedia Wikipedia released its first-ever transparency report, detailing the number of user data and content takedown requests it received over the past two years.
The report aims to shed light on what types of requests the site receives and how nonprofit parent Wikimedia handles them.
"We believe that protecting user privacy and defending against censorship are essential to the success of that mission," Wikimedia wrote in its report.
"Every year, we receive requests from governments, individuals, and organizations to disclose information about our users or to delete or alter content on our projects. Some are legitimate. Some are not," the report said.
Most content disputes are resolved by users, but the occasional extreme case slips through, and the Wikimedia Foundation may receive a legal demand to override users.
That doesn't mean the organization necessarily complies with such requests, it said.
"The Wikimedia projects are yours, not ours. People just like you from around the world write, upload, edit, and curate all of the content. Therefore, we believe users should decide what belongs on Wikimedia projects whenever legally possible," the transparency report said.
Which goes a long way in explaining why, of the 304 content alteration and takedown requests made between July 2012 and June 2014, Wikimedia granted none of them.
Among the topics addressed by third parties inquiring about taking down Wikipedia content: a monkey selfie and an entire aboriginal language.
When a photographer left his camera unattended in an Indonesian national park, he returned to find a series of imagesincluding some selfiesshot by a female crested black macaque monkey. The pictures were later featured in an online newspaper article and posted to Commons.
Wikimedia in January received a takedown request from the photographer, who claimed the rights to the pictures.
"We didn't agree, so we denied the request," the report said.
Similarly, more than two years ago, a Tasmanian aboriginal language center demanded Wikimedia remove an English article on the "palawa kani" dialect.
Despite a declaration of copyright ownership by the language center, Wikimedia refused to remove the article, saying that copyright law can't be used to "stop people from using an entire language."
"Such a broad claim would have chilled free speech and negatively impacted research, education, and public discourseactivities that Wikimedia serves to promote," the organization said.
A majority of the requests come from the United States, 105 in total. People and groups in Germany, the U.K., and France also submitted more than 25 requests each between July 2012 and June 2014.
Wikimedia was a lot more likely to give up user data than it was to take down content. Out of 56 requests in two years, the organization produced information on users 14 percent of the timebasically, it conceded to seven of the U.S.'s 15 requests.
Though the nonprofit heartily believes in freedom of speech, it will occasionally reveal nonpublic data, if requested by governments, individuals, and corporations. But Wikimedia said it doesn't give in without a fight.
"We carefully evaluate every request before considering disclosure," the report said. "If the requests do not meet our standardsif they are overly broad, unclear, or irrelevantwe will push back on behalf of our users."
Comparatively, Wikipedia receives an atom-sized fraction of the number of requests for user data made to other companies, like Internet giants Google and Facebook.