Google reports 'alarming' rise in government censorship requests

(CNN) -- Western governments, including the United States, appear to be stepping up efforts to censor Internet search results and YouTube videos, according to a "transparency report" released by Google.

"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," Dorothy Chou, a senior policy analyst at Google, wrote in a blog post on Sunday night.

"For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn't comply with either of these requests."

In the last half of 2011, U.S. agencies asked Google to remove 6,192 individual pieces of content from its search results, blog posts or archives of online videos, according to the report. That's up 718% compared with the 757 such items that U.S. agencies asked Google to remove in the six months prior.

"Alarming" rise in government censorship requests

While I do understand some requests, I am afraid that this will continue to escalate until it is completely out of hand. We need to be aware of what the government is trying to censor. How far will this go? Pretty soon we will won't be privvy to any information besides what the government wants us to see. How long until they shut down sites like this?

There is already a thread here! I didn't find it because I searched the exact title.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I really can understand a very few things being censored. But, when legitimate factual information is being concealed to protect institutions or politicians reputations we have a serious problem.

There's probably no stopping this, however. It's just a small part of a much bigger operation to subjugate us all to a slave status. We must all prepare in our own way.

Could be a slippery slope, no reason to think it's not. Once you lose the ability to do something, it's going pretty much for good!

Download the videos you think are important, post them somewhere else, give credit where credit is due, and remind people that these videos are being taken down.

Another Thread Here

Spread the word!

I really like how America tried to get pissy over China's censorship.

Yep. This is about what I expected.