India Ranks Third Globally In Google Content Removal Requests, Surging 26% In 2022
Over the last 10 years, the Indian government requested Google to remove 115.5k items, a new study has revealed. Between 2013 and 2022, India's government agencies requested Google to remove content over 19.6k times, putting India at the third place globally, according to a study conducted by Surfshark.
Why do governments make takedown requests?
In these requests, the most frequently cited reason was defamation. "Government requests for content removal from Google products are on the rise. In the past decade, the global count has surged nearly 13 times ¡ª from 7k to 91k requests annually. National security stands out as the most frequently cited reason by governments globally seeking the removal of undesirable content. A notable increase in content removal requests to Google by governments around the world during times of international conflicts and wars prompts us to consider the balance between genuine interest in a country's public safety and the potential encroachment into censorship," said Agneska Sablovskaja, Lead Researcher at Surfshark.
What requests did India make?
The Indian government made 19.6k requests from Google to remove content, averaging 5 requests per day. The top three justifications in India were ?defamation (20.1%), involving harm to reputation, including claims of libel, slander, and corporate defamation. At the second spot was impersonation (16.3%), which includes the intent to harm someone's reputation through malicious tools. Lastly, privacy and security (8.3%) requests related to claims of violations of a user's privacy or personal information.
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The report claims that each request includes multiple items, which means that the real item count could be much higher. "In total, 19.6k requests from India in the last decade comprised 115.5k items for removal, averaging 6 items per request," the report states.?
The top three requesters for content removal since 2019 from Google in India are the police, court orders against Google, and the Information and Communications Authority. Most removal requests were for YouTube (8.8k), Google Play Apps (4.3k), and web search (1.4k).?Compared to 2021, in 2022, the government submitted 26% more requests to Google.
Which countries made the most requests for content removal to Google?
Six countries have accounted for over 85% of total content removal requests from Google over the last decade.
Russia made 215k requests, averaging 59 requests each day over the last 10 years. South Korea took the second spot with 27k requests in total - averaging 7 requests daily. India came in third with 20k requests at a rate of 5.5 per day.
India was followed by Turkey (19k requests - averaging 5 per day), Brazil (12k requests - averaging 3 per day), and the United States (11k requests - averaging 3 per day).
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Globally, government requests for content removal exceeded 355k over the last 10 years. 2022 stood out as a record-breaking year, witnessing a 50% surge in removal requests from government agencies. Top products for the most number of content removal requests are YouTube (175k), Google Search (104k), and Blogger (17k).
Top five justifications used by governments for their content takedown requests are matters of national security (mentioned in 27% requests), copyright (20%), defamation (10%), regulated goods and services (10%), and privacy and security (10%). The study's methodology is available here.
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