Internet content censorship from India up by 49%: Google
NEW YORK: 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 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.
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