Google has been asked by a US law enforcement agency to remove several videos exposing police brutality from the video sharing service YouTube, the company has revealed in its latest update to an online transparency report.
Another request filed by a different agency required Google to remove videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. The two requests were among 92 submissions for content removal by various authorities in the US filed between January and June 2011. Both were rejected by Google along with 27 per cent of the submissions.
The IT giant says the overall number of requests for content removal it receives from governmental agencies has risen, and so has the number of requests to disclose the private data of Google users.
Commenting on the incident, Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, points out that YouTube is a public platform and any steps to censor it should be backed with a court order.
“Police seem to be advising Google on what material might be breaking the law, and then Google decides to censor this material without a court order,” he said, stressing that a court appearance should be part of making such judgments.
Ultimately, public media seem to becoming more of a police tool to gather evidence. Killock recalled British Prime Minister David Cameron urging the news outlets to hand over material collected during the UK riots – both published and unpublished – to the police.
“It completely compromises the freedom of the media,” Killock told RT.
Only 27% of the submissions for censorship were rejected? It seems youtube has been compromised and is no longer an open source of free information. Well there's always liveleaks.com? Doesn't have the same massive userbase as youtube though. If you have a video of police brutality or something like that be sure to post it on as many video sites as possible to reduce the risks of it being removed from the internet.
Didn't UN just invade a country over this sort of brutality and treatment of civilians? Ironic how our own government gets to play god all the time when they are no better....
it is the duty and right of american citizens to photo civil servants doing their job. the 10 circuit court upheld our right to photo civil servants only a few months ago. that's why cops aren't telling people to stop photo'g. they know
It's the PATRIOT ACT! cg
I love these "floater" stories. Telcom company defending the rights of society. Yeah, right. The only reason this stuff gets any exposure is to divert more significant details. Its like when the TIPS program as exposed...all the phony indignation and the "official" declaration that the program was ended. It ended alright...ended up underground so it can operate unfettered without the whining from the sheeple. As long as the world continues down the security state with all the associated paranoia...and more importantly...profiteering...its only going to get worse. We really need a Orwell dictionary for any "information" released by officialdom> But here is a good start..."war" is now "peace"...."invasions" are "democracy building"..."patriotism" is "war mongering"....and 'up" is now "down"
and then there is the attempt being made in the u.s. congress to make it illegal for ISPs to carry anything the gov't doesn't like. the idiots are asking for another shutdown of their systems.
amnesia, you sure hit the nail! As Google is showing its 33rd degree masonic level owners' agenda, We the Sheeple will face more and more of its "Open"-is-closed "freedom" -is-censorship "Closure" -is-open "Shut-off"-is-access "Hate-crimes"-are-what-'they'-do,-not-what-'we'-do "Forcing"-is-good-democracy-if-we-do-it to "Censor"-truth-sayers-is-good-for-justice double-speak and ugly reality of the repressive state that Google, et al really is.