Monday, June 18, 2012

Google removed videos of celebrity comedians ridiculing politicians in Brazil as such behavior is illegal there

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6/18/12, "Governments target political comment in requests to remove Internet content - Google," AFP

"Political commentary remains a prime target as governments increase the number of requests for Google Inc. to remove material from the reach of Internet users.

The Internet giant Sunday released its fifth semi-annual Transparency Report providing insights into requests by countries around the world to "take down" content from search results or Google venues such as YouTube.

"Just like every other time before, we've been asked to take down political speech," Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, said.

"It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect--Western democracies not typically associated with censorship."

The number of requests doubled in the second half of last year, with Ukraine, Jordan and Bolivia showing up for the first time on the list of countries out to have online material removed, Google said.

From the start of July through December last year, Google complied with approximately 65% of the more that 467 court orders to remove material, and with 47% of the more than 561 requests without judicial backing....

An electoral court order from Brazil resulted in Google removing four profiles from its Orkut social network for political content.

Broad defamation laws in Brazil allow for obtaining court orders to remove even truthful information from the Internet, according to Google.

The law there also reportedly bans showing parodies of candidates during elections, leading to requests for removal of material such as bits by celebrity comedians."...

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You Tube did comply with requests from a variety of US law enforcement agencies. The BBC headline below describes removed videos as 'terrorism videos' which is misleading. Google made a point of saying they were overwhelmed with requests to take down ordinary political speech and in some cases did so. The above AFP article details examples like illegality of satirizing politicians in Brazil.

6/18/12, "Google reveals 'terrorism video' removals," BBC

"But Google did act in hundreds of cases, including:...

  • the termination of four YouTube accounts responsible for videos that allegedly contained threatening and harassing content after complaints by different US law enforcement agencies."

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