Despite Twitter Surge, Government Pressures for User Information

Twitter's recent surge of share worth certainly raised the company's morale for growth but it seems governments all over the world, especially the U.S. government, are unconvinced about the diversity of the social network; hence the 2,058 requests for information on users in the first half of 2014.

Twitter has been releasing reports biannually since 2012, and among the stats is the obvious increase in government requests for information about users.

Twitter's legal department said it hasn't done much to satisfy the requests. Google and Facebook reached a deal with the Justice Department to release some details about national security requests.

Twitter looks to release more granular data, but it is not what the Obama administration lawyers are looking for.

"At this point, over 90 days have passed, and we still have not received a reply," Twitter said Thursday. The company is bearing in mind its legal options against the U.S. government in regards to releasing more information.

Otherwise, Twitter is having a fairly good week.

The sites second quarter grew by 124%, to $312 million, from last year's quarter around this same time.

"Surprise surprise, Twitter had a great quarter," said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with market research firm eMarketer. "Nobody was expecting it. They really outperformed in just about every metric that we can see," she said. "They've answered a lot of questions."

Twitter said that its earning grew to two cents per share. Previous estimate were that Twitter would lose a penny per share.

This spike sent Twitter shares up 38% to a nice $52.28 per share.

"Our strong financial and operating results from for the second quarter show the continued momentum of our business," Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said. "We remain focused on driving increased user growth and engagement."

So what was this great increase in users for Twitter? Twitter gained 16 million users in the second quarter, ascending from their December number of 255 million active users. Those users averaged 500 million tweets everyday.