Governments Censoring Google

Remember that  old refrain that the Internet was wonderful because it was a free and open platform for the exchange of information? I guess we soon learned that it isn't so. There are restrictions and censorship all over the Internet. Just ask someone in North Korea, for instance, if he or she can read anything on the Internet.  Google (and its affiliated partner Yu Tube)  probably gets bombarded the most by governments who ask them to remove content or to turn over content that the government can use to harass someone who posted it.

The country by country total of censorship request for the past six months of last year was just released by Google. What is surprising is how many democratic countries ask too. But then, those requests are more often not about censoring free speech. They are most often legitimate attempt  to enforce laws such as those protecting privacy of an individual or restricting hate speech. Dictatorships though, as in China and Iran, often hint to Google to remove content because they want to suppress internal opposition,  they don't like the content or are because they see the content as threatening the governments control over its people. When the dictators don't get Google's cooperation they often censor themselves by blocking out access in their countries to Google and Yu Tube with their self imposed filters.

Google says it gets more than 2 million requests alone just to remove addresses from its search engine. It all makes one wonder if there is any communication platform that is truly free, and whether the increasing attempts of governments to censor, for good or evil reasons, content that used to be seen by Internet users without such filters.

Here is a representative sampling of the highlights of the censorship requests as Google reported during that 6 month period, and why Google faces big problems in trying to obey all the requests, both for real and self-serving censorship attempts.

Brazil

We received the most requests for censorship from Brazil, with 418 requests made. We complied with 61% of them

Canada
We received a request from the Passport Canada Office to remove a YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. We did not comply with this request.

China
We received three requests to remove a total of 121 items from our services. We removed ads that violated our AdWords policies in response to two of those requests, but did not comply otherwise. We have withheld details about one request because we have reason to believe that the Chinese government has prohibited us from full disclosure.
YouTube was inaccessible during this reporting period.

France
A single court order resulted in the removal of 180 items from Google Groups relating to a case of defamation against a man and his wife.

Germany

A court order resulted in the removal of 898 search results that linked to forums and blogs containing statements about a government agency and one of its employees that the court determined were not credible.
We received a request to remove 70 YouTube videos for allegedly violating the German Childrens and Young Persons Act. We restricted some of the videos from view in Germany in accordance with local laws.

India
The number of content removal requests we received increased by 49% compared to the previous reporting period.

Italy
We received a request from the Central Police in Italy to remove a YouTube video that satirized Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s lifestyle. We did not comply with this request.

Pakistan
We received a request from the Government of Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology to remove six YouTube videos that satirized the Pakistan Army and senior politicians. We did not comply with this request.

Norway
Two requests resulted in the removal of 1814 items from AdWords for violating Norwegian marketing laws.

Poland
We received a request from the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development to remove a search result that criticized the agency as well as eight more that linked to it. We did not comply with this request.

Spain
We received 14 requests from the Spanish Data Protection Authority to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and sites referencing individuals and public figures. The Spanish Data Protection Authority also ordered the removal of three blogs published on Blogger and three videos hosted on YouTube. We did not comply with these requests.

Thailand
We received four requests from the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology in Thailand to remove 149 YouTube videos for allegedly insulting the monarchy in violation of Thailand's lèse-majesté law. We restricted 70% of these videos from view in Thailand in accordance with local law.

Turkey
We received a request from the Telecommunciations Communication Presidency of the Information and Communications Technologies Authoritiy to remove a YouTube video that contained hate speech and two other videos about Atatürk. We removed the video with hate speech for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines but did not comply with the rest of the request. In addition, we received two requests from the Telecommunications Communication Presidency of the Information and Communications Technologies Authority and a request from the Ankara Public Prosecutor of the Press Bureau to remove a total of seven YouTube videos, claiming that the videos violated law no. 5816 on crimes against Atatürk. We restricted Turkish users from accessing six of these videos.

United Kingdom
We received a request from the UK's Association of Police Officers  to remove five user accounts that allegedly promoted terrorism. We terminated these accounts because they violated YouTube's Community Guidelines and as a result approximately 640 videos were removed.

United States
We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove a blog because of a post that allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity. We did not comply with this request, which we have categorized in this Report as a defamation request.
We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 1,400 YouTube videos
for alleged harassment. We did not comply with this request. Separately, we received a request from a different local law enforcement agency to remove five user accounts that allegedly contained threatening and/or harassing content. We terminated four of the accounts, which resulted in the removal of approximately 300 videos, but did not remove the remaining account with 54 videos.

We received a court order to remove 218 search results that linked to allegedly defamatory web sites. We removed 25% of the results cited in the request.
The number of content removal requests we received increased by 103% compared to the previous reporting period.