Google transparency report: spike in govt request to censor content

During July to December 2012 Google received 2,285 government requests to remove 24,179 pieces of content

Search giant Google continued to receive government requests to remove content from its platform.

For the period July to December 2012 received 2,285 government requests to remove 24,179 pieces of content—an increase from the 1,811 requests to remove 18,070 pieces of content that it received during the first half of 2012. Brazil and US led the list with maximum requests from the government, followed by Germany, India and Turkey.

“As we’ve gathered and released more data over time, it’s become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown. In more places than ever, we’ve been asked by governments to remove political content that people post on our services. In this particular time period, we received court orders in several countries to remove blog posts criticizing government officials or their associates,” said Susan Infantino, Legal Director, Google in her blog.

India is no exception. The total requests that various department of Indian government made to Google for removal of content from its platform for the period was 122 to remove 2,529 pieces of content, a significant spike from just 64 requests made to remove 109 items for the same period last year. Add to this Google received 38 requests to pull down content through Court orders for 413 items for the same period.

According to the Google Transparency report, the company received inquiries from 20 countries regarding YouTube videos that contain clips of the movie, "Innocence of Muslims": Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, Djibouti, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Maldives, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.

“Australia, Egypt, and the United States requested that we review the videos to determine if they violated our Community Guidelines, which they did not. The other 17 countries requested that we remove the videos. We restricted videos from view in Indonesia, India, Jordan, Malaysia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Turkey. Due to difficult circumstances, we temporarily restricted videos from view in Egypt and Libya,” said the report.

During the period of disturbance in the North-East region, Google received five requests from the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team to remove content from Google+, a Blogger blog, 64 YouTube videos, and 1759 comments associated with some YouTube videos, that cited laws covering disruption of public order or ethnic offence laws. Google restricted 47 Youtube Videos from local view, in addition to removing 12 YouTube comments and disabling local access to 3 Blogger blog posts that violated local laws.