“See, Hear & Speak no Evil”- Google Censorship Requests June 18, 2012
Posted by Chris Mark in Industry News, privacy.Tags: Censorship, cybersecurity, freedom of speech, google, InfoSec, mark consulting group, privacy, requests, satire
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Google today released information related to the censorship requests by Governments around the Globe. While many are familiar with China and other nations restricting access, it is interesting to see so many “Western” countries requesting censorship. An interesting example is the Canadian Government requesting the removal of “…YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. “ To their credit, Google did NOT comply with this request. In another request, Google “…received a request from the Central Police in Italy to remove a YouTube video that satirized Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s lifestyle.” Again, Google did not comply. The interesting part of these requests is that they request removal of material that is typically considered a right of free speech and protest. Satire has been used as a form of protest in West for centuries (look at Voltare, Oscar Wilde…etc.etc.) and civil disobedience (urinating on a passport, is a good example) has certainly been used as form of protest. One has to wonder whether how much more information ‘free’ governments have kept from the public. You can see the Google removal requests here.
Global Security, Privacy, & Risk Management 
For me here it is interesting that no Western government has requested the removal of al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine (as I’m currently do a Masters Dissertation on the subject no surprise that I’m interested here!). Google could remove links to the wikipedia page where they can all be downloaded! However, the UK government did request the removal of youtube videos, in particular those by Anwar al-Awlaki.