Internet content censorship from India up 49%: Google

[Chief]

Internet giant Google has reported a sharp rise of 49% in online content censorship from India as it said the trend of blockage were increasing from governments round the world, more surprisingly from Western democracies.

Google Inc said it had received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world in the second half of last year to take down items such as YouTube videos and search listings, and it complied with them more than half the time.

The Internet giant said political comments were a prime target as the number of requests for the company to remove content from the reach of Internet users jumped manifold.

"We noticed that government agencies from different countries would ask us to remove political content that the users had posted," a top Google official said.

He said the number of content removal requests received by Google in India was 49% higher in the second half of last year than in the first six months.

But the requests made by New Delhi were not released in the company's transparency report made public yesterday.

Google reported that it went along slightly more than half of the approximately 1,000 requests it received to remove material or links.

The Google report does not provide insights from countries such as China, where tight Internet controls allow blocking of content.

The net blockage request from governments ranged from satires on military Generals in Pakistan, request from UK police officers to terminate six YouTube videos for terror contents and SOS for removal of as many as 149 videos for allegedly insulting the monarchy in Thailand.

Google said Pakistan's Ministry of Information of Technology asked it to remove six YouTube videos that satirised the country's military and senior politicians.

"We did not comply with the request," it said.

A company top official said that the prime request from the governments were mostly to take down political speech. "It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect - Western democracies not typically associated with censorship."

Like India, content removal requests doubled from the US in the second half of last year as Ukraine, Jordon and Bolivia showed up for the first time on the list of countries out to have materials removed.

From political to terror inspirations, Google said that requests at times became ludicrous as Canadian officials wanted removal from YouTube of pictures of a citizen peeing on his passport and flushing it down a toilet.

Releasing the transparency report, Google said it hoped to continue to contribute to the public debate about how government behaviours are shaping our web.

Overall, the firm said it had received 461 court orders covering a total of 6,989 items between July and December 2011. It said it had complied with 68% of the orders.

The company said it had received a further 546 informal requests covering 4,925 items, of which it had agreed to 43% of the cases.



Internet content censorship from India up 49%: Google

 

[Chief]

The content Google removed, and didn't, in last 6 months


Google has received more than 1,000 requests from authorities to take down content from its search results or YouTube video in the last six months of 2011, the company said on Monday, denouncing what it said was an alarming trend.

In its twice-yearly Transparency Report, the world's largest web search engine said the requests were aimed at having some 12,000 items overall removed, about a quarter more than during the first half of last year.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, the search engine's senior policy analyst, said in a blog post. "We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Many of those requests targeted political speech, keeping up a trend Google said it has noticed since it started releasing its Transparency Report in 2010.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect - Western democracies not typically associated with censorship," said Chou. (Google Public Policy Blog: More transparency into government requests)

In the second half of last year, Google complied with around 65 percent of court orders and 47 percent of informal requests to remove content, it said.

The censorship report offers an overview of which officials have asked Google to delete content and why.

In one case, Spanish regulators asked Google to remove 270 links to blogs and newspaper articles criticising public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors.

So far Google has not complied. In March, Spain's highest court asked the European Court of Justice to examine whether requests by citizens to have content removed were lawful.

In some countries, Google says it has no choice but to submit to these requests, because certain types of political speech are unlawful.

In Germany, the company removes videos from YouTube with Nazi references because these are banned.

Chou said that in Thailand videos featuring the monarch with a seat over his head have been removed for insulting the monarchy. The country has some of the world's toughest "lese- majeste" laws.

In Canada, Google was asked by officials to get rid of a YouTube video showing a citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. But in that instance the company refused.

Google and many other online providers maintain that they cannot lawfully remove any content for which they are merely the host and not the producer, a principle enshrined in EU law on eCommerce since 2000.

In January 2012 the European Union's executive Commission announced it would introduce clearer guidelines on handling such requests, outlining under which circumstances it would be legal to have content removed from the Web and when it would curb free speech and fundamental rights.

The Commission has launched a public consultation called "a clean and open Internet" and has asked companies how many requests they get to take down content, from whom and for what reason.

Among examples of material that should be taken down EU regulators cite racist content, child abuse or spam. The rules are expected to be announced before the end of the year.


NDTV