SAN FRANCISCO: After a six-year battle, a federal court has stopped Twitter from revealing surveillance requests it received from the US government.

The court accepted government arguments that revealing the requests was likely to harm national security.

The social media company had sued the US Department of Justice in 2014 in a bid to be allowed to reveal surveillance requests as part of its “Draft Transparency Report”.

The lawsuit followed months of fruitless negotiations and marked an escalation in the Internet industry’s battle with Washington over gag orders.