Google complied with censorship requests from China, Russia, authoritarian regimes

Since 2011, Google has engaged with 150 different governments that have requested content be scrubbed from public domains. These requests have come not only from democratic administrations but also from dictatorships and sanctioned regimes, including the police in Afghanistan.

The investigation found that Google has removed content, including YouTube videos, at the request of the Chinese and Russian governments. The removed content included videos of anti-government protests and material accusing politicians of corruption.

Google's own data shows that 5.6 million items of content have been "named for removal" due to government requests. According to the cybersecurity firm Surfshark, global content removal requests submitted to Google have more than doubled since 2020.

While Google does not fully disclose details regarding takedown requests, it publishes summaries of some censorship requests in its Transparency Report, which is updated every six months. The Observer's analysis of this report found that Google's process for content removal lacks transparency, with critics accusing the company of “playing God” with little oversight. Some cases were regarding national security and others for copyright, but thousands of requests were categorized as “other” without further clarification.

Russia accounted for more than 60 percent of takedown requests in the four years analyzed up to June 2024. This included the removal of a YouTube video that allegedly exposed "corruption among politicians" and contained "some rhetorical threats of violent action against the alleged corrupt politicians.

In China, Google removed more than 200 videos, with the Ministry of Public Security requesting the removal of 412. Among them, 346 videos contained "allegations about corruption within the political system in the People’s Republic of China or stories about top government officials." Google also took down impersonation accounts of Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The removal of such accounts follows China’s 2015 ban on online impersonation, which had been used as a way to criticize Xi and bypass censorship laws.