Twitter said it can’t discuss an emerging case about an alleged rape broadcast on its live-streaming app Periscope.
Ohio prosecutors this week charged an 18-year-old woman with a type of distributing child pornography, as well as kidnapping, rape and sexual battery. They claim she live-streamed the alleged rape of her 17-year-old friend through Periscope.
Lawyers for Marina Lonina have argued that she used the app, which allows people to easily live stream video from a phone’s camera, because the broadcast was meant to to stop the man allegedly assaulting her. (NPR earlier reported the case.)
But a representative from Twitter says the company can’t comment on any account or investigation “for privacy and security reasons.”
Periscope’s community guidelines state that the app is “intended to be open and safe. To maintain a healthy platform, explicit graphic content is not allowed. Explicit graphic content includes, but is not limited to, depictions of child abuse, animal abuse, or bodily harm. Periscope is not for content that is intended to incite violence, or includes a direct and specific threat of violence to others.”
Twitter didn’t state whether it has aided law enforcement in this case, but it also has guidelines for law enforcement. They explain what information the company has about accounts and how authorities can request it through valid legal process or emergency disclosure requests, which requires there be an exigent emergency involving the danger of death or serious physical injury to a person.
Twitter does disclose law enforcement requests, but it does so in aggregate twice a year in transparency reports. In the most recent one for the second half of last year, the company received 5,560 requests from law enforcement involving 12,176 accounts on Twitter, Periscope and its six-second video app, Vine.