In a recent transparency report, Google revealed that a United States law enforcement agency formally requested that the search engine remove a video documenting police brutality, claiming that the footage constituted defamation. Google refused, saying that they “generally rely on courts to decide if a statement is defamatory according to local law.”
According to the report, between January and June of this year, the U.S. government filed nearly 800 requests to remove content, 80 percent of which were motivated by defamation allegations. Google complied with 63 percent of these requests.
The company’s refusal to remove the video sets an important precedent for the procedures surrounding the free information movement on the Internet. If Google were forced to remove content on the basis of defamation, the whole integrity of the concept of their search engine would be compromised. Google stands firmly separated from government and censorship, and should remain so to maintain their caliber and credibility as an information source on the Web.
Google is also simply the avenue by which content is exposed. If a posting falls under the category of defamation, those allegedly defamed should take up the issue with either the courts or the user who posted it.
The U.S. placed third highest in number of content removal requests in a worldwide list of governments, ahead of even China, according to The Huffington Post. Despite this fact, our laws thankfully do not heavily restrict online content in the first place, and so the American Web remains a network of free-flowing information unhindered by the handicap of censorship.
Thankfully, Google, although it is one of the largest and most powerful technology corporations in the world, discloses the amount of content removed and the reasoning behind it in an effort to maintain transparency and credibility with users. As long as the corporation continues in this vein, the world of free information should not feel threatened by these requests for content removal.
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