by Paul Joseph Watson
October 26, 2011
from
PrisonPlanet Website
US Authorities Hit Google
With 70% Rise In Takedown Orders
Paul Joseph Watson is the
editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order
Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex
Jones Show. |
The number of takedown orders received by Google
from authorities based in the United States rose dramatically over the past
year, with demands to remove information, including videos containing
“government criticism,” increasing by 70 per cent.
“In the US, Google received 757 takedown
requests across its sites and services, up 70 per cent from the second
half of last year,”
reports technology website V3.co.uk.
“US authorities also called for the removal of 113 videos from YouTube,
including several documenting alleged police brutality which Google
refused to take down.”
The figures are revealed in Google’s newly
released
transparency report, which also details how the number of “user
data requests” by US authorities increased by 29 per cent compared to the
last reporting period.
The reason listed for the removal of a You Tube video in one instance is
“government criticism”.
The exact identity or content of the video is
not divulged. The report states that the removal requests pertaining to
“police brutality” were done on the grounds of “defamation” and are included
in that separate category, meaning the takedown order on the grounds of
“government criticism” was made by the “executive,” i.e. the federal
government.
The report does not indicate whether or not You Tube complied with the
removal request, but it did comply with 63 per cent of the total requests
made.
The number of “Items requested to be removed” by US authorities was almost
seven-fold the number requested to be removed by Chinese authorities, a
country much maligned for its Internet censorship policies.
As we have
previously documented, Google-owned You Tube has complied with
thousands of requests worldwide to remove political protest videos that are
clearly not in violation of any copyright or national security interests and
do not constitute defamation.
One such example was You Tube’s compliance with a request from the British
government to censor footage of the British Constitution Group’s Lawful
Rebellion protest, during which they attempted to civilly arrest Judge
Michael Peake at Birkenhead county court.
When viewers in the UK attempted to watch videos of the protest, they were
met with the message,
“This content is not available in your
country due to a government removal request.”
Indeed, the latest figures show that takedown
requests on behalf of British authorities have also skyrocketed by 71 per
cent, including 44 removal orders in the first half of this year which came
directly from the UK government, one of which was the Birkenhead protest
footage.
In Britain, a total of 135 videos were removed from You Tube on the grounds
of “national security” and 43 web search results were also blacklisted by
government decree.
These figures illustrate how governments, particularly the United States and
Britain, are getting more aggressive in pushing for web censorship as the
state increasingly tries to strangle the last bastion of true free speech,
the Internet, as authorities simultaneously try to advance draconian
cybersecurity measures that would hand them complete control over the world
wide web.