Google reports ‘alarming’ rise in censorship by governments

Flashback: Google Is Already Using SOPA-Like Censorship

Dominic Rushe
London Guardian
June 18, 2012

There has been an alarming rise in the number of times governments attempted to censor the internet in last six months, according to a report from Google.

Since the search engine last published its bi-annual transparency report, it said it had seen a troubling increase in requests to remove political content. Many of these requests came from western democracies not typically associated with censorship.

It said Spanish regulators asked Google to remove 270 links to blogs and newspaper articles critical of public figures. It did not comply. In Poland, it was asked to remove an article critical of the Polish agency for enterprise development and eight other results that linked to the article. Again, the company did not comply.

Google was asked by Canadian officials to remove a YouTube video of a citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. It refused.

Full article here

This article was posted: Monday, June 18, 2012 at 4:33 am

Tags: business, domestic spying

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