Source: Patrick Roanhouse

Censorship (Photo credit: IsaacMao)

Google’s fifth “Transparency Report” shows that the emperors of the world wear no clothes. The search and information giant started releasing the data two years ago, offering a small peek into the bombardment of user information requests that world governments make — everything from non-copyrighted YouTube video take-downs, to search result link removals, to, most alarmingly, private citizen emails and information.

But what is most alarming about these requests? Many are not even for serious matters of national security. Most are down right requests to silence, censor, track, and or monitor dissident internal political groups and political opponents. In some, it is the outright censorship of non-violent organizations, ideas, or even the requested silence of whistle-blowers pointing out corruption. Google’s own policy analyst, Dorothy Chou, sees a disturbing trending rise, particularly from “Western democracies not typically associated with censorship”.

Google, Take Down This Post

Google states at the top of its ‘Content Removal’ by country government chart just some of the basic reasons for the content take downs by governments:

Read More:  Google stands against government spying and censorship

Related articles

• Google reports ‘alarming’ rise in government censorship requests (theneteconomy.wordpress.com)
• Google reports ‘alarming’ rise in censorship by governments (guardian.co.uk)
• World Governments Increasingly Demand Internet Censorship (personalliberty.com)