Google Reveals What Govt Ordered It To Delete From The Internet
Google has published a report that emphasizes the requests made by the government to take down specific content from the web.
During the first half of 2023, Google received a combined total of 58 inquiries from different governmental bodies, whereas there were only 5 comparable requests made between June and December 2022, as documented in the Google Transparency Report.
It was observed that the appeals aimed at removing harmful content that defamed others and involved pretending to be senior government figures.
Items posing a risk to national security or violating trademark regulations were also identified for deletion at that time.
According to Google’s records, the majority of government requests were issued via court orders, while the rest originated from private individuals approaching Google directly.
“Courts and government agencies around the world regularly request that we remove information from Google products. We review these requests closely to determine if content should be removed because it violates a law or our product policies. In this report, we disclose the number of requests we receive in six-month periods.
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“There are many reasons we may not have removed content in response to a request, for instance, some requests may not be specific enough for us to know what the government wanted us to remove (for example, no URL is listed in the request) or the content might have already been removed by the author,” read the report in part.
However, the government’s appeals were directed towards safeguarding Kenyan citizens from fraudulent individuals.
For example, the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) requested the deletion of material that pretended to be banks.
We also aimed at sites frequently posting fraudulent job listings to deceive Kenyans.
“We received a request from the Communications Authority of Kenya to remove a Google Form that was found to be impersonating a local commercial bank to collect information from users.
“We restricted access to the Google Form for violation of Google Drive Abuse Program Policies,” read the report in part.
Google Reveals What Govt Ordered It To Delete From The Internet
