Google used the opportunity of the Dublin OSCE conference on Internet Freedom to release their Transparency Report containing the totals of requests for takedown of content on Google's servers from governments (this ranges from search links to Youtubes).
The entire exercise was designed to say, "Look at us, we take down content and turn over user data at the behest of governments and thereby impede Internet freedom, but we tell you about it, so you can look at the source of the problem."
Therefore, Google looks good even when it is now performing a global GlavLit function -- another feature of Google tinged with Soviet culture. GlavLit used to filter through every printed thing in the Soviet Union -- even the text on a matchbox -- and make sure it followed approved Communist Party guidelines.
If you take a look at the Transparency Report, your eye will instantly fall on the countries with the hugest amount of take-down notices -- Brazil or the US.
That's one of those very typical artifacts of geeky literalism and obsession with "data" -- i.e. what they believe is pure science and pure numbers, but which is terribly misleading without context.
Already BetaBeat has done exactly what Google wanted to do with this and screamed in a headline, Guess Which Government Sent Google the Most Removal Requests? USA! USA! USA!
It will be only a matter of days -- minutes? -- before Rebecca MacKinnon tweets or blogs that the US is the worst censor in the world -- Google says so, and they should know!
The Irish Times quoted Tom Melia, head of the US Delegation as follows:
Melia, who works in the US Bureau of Democracy, told conference-goers, “too many governments were filtering, censoring content, taking down sites, and perpetuating Internet shutdowns.
So naturally BetaBeat had a lot of fun with that, noting that "Ars Technica points out, that censure looks a tad hypocritical in the context of Google’s latest transparency report."
Well, no, because Google is more than a tad mischievious in how they are manipulating this data. As the search and ad giant tells us in the report, "We hope this tool will be helpful in discussions about the appropriate scope and authority of government requests.."
So obviously, what Google hopes is that after "transparency" will come "alchemy," and citizens will become so outraged at all the takedowns in their country that they will flashmob their governments and force them to stop making them.
I'm wondering about how Google managed to hang on to its common carrier and "safe harbour" status with this entire GlavLit gambit, but they have good lawyers and probably tap-danced around it. They probably put it in TOS terms that they aren't pre-screening the content themselves and not accepting liability for it, but if they receive a "lawful request" they will take it down under established procedures in the industry.
The US has among the most free Internet in the world with the most tolerance for speech of every kind. Perhaps the WikiLeaks supporting Icelandic contingent feels their country is more free, but the US does not hold any bloggers in jail nor has it closed down any Internet site that anyone can really prove wasn't containing infringing or genuinely unlawful material, i.e. sales of illegal drugs or child pornography.
The problem with the very sparsely-texted Transparency Report is that it doesn't distinguish between the artifacts of its "data" and the capacities of different countries. The reason the US has so many filings is because it has loads of capacity. It has highly developed law-enforcement and cyber-security agencies -- many countries don't have anything, not even a focal point in a foreign ministry or communication or internal affairs ministry. Quite a few countries don't want to add to their burden of existence filing English-language complaints about stuff on the Internet that only one percent or ten percent or thirty percent of their population accesses.
So it's the old story of "more traffic, more traffic accidents" -- the US instantly looks bad merely for being a highly-functioning country with capacity with a long history of policing severe Internet crimes precisely because the Internet was largely invented on its territory.
The US government filed the most requests to remove content and Google only removed 40% of them even with court orders (117 requests) and 44% of executive or police request (70).
For one, it's disturbing that Google can't honour court orders; we don't know what that's all about because they don't tell us. In order to judge whether Google operates in good faith, we'd have to hear more about their criteria.
In the Dublin presentation, there was mention that a variety of sources are used to make these determinations, from US Supreme Court decisions and European Court of Human Rights decision. We can see the report sources information about the closure or blockage of its services from various news media.
Bu what's more interesting about the "USA! USA!" page for user information requests, however, is that 93 percent were honoured by Google. That means when confronted, Google partially or fully supplied information 93 percent of the time on individual accounts because they involved crimes. Because the US did the right thing and lawfully asked for information on individuals involved in a wide range of offenses, whether pedophilia or terrorism planning, and Google conceded that.
They were the result of court cases, law-enforcement investigations or common sense.
The copyleftists and anarchists get their knickers in a twist that the ebil imperialist Amerika is "censoring" the Internet, but what they are asking to remove is not something that any other country is allowing to appear, even if liberal -- if it has the capacity to remove it or request that it be removed.
Google stood up to most of the requests that came even with court orders (!) when it came to content, i.e. posts, pictures, videos, etc.
BetaBeat simply fails to mention that Google, which it sees as the good guy and "not doing evil" is in fact complying with the US requests on user data largely because it finds them reasonable. It focuses on the content requests which only have 40% compliance from Google -- and here stuff like data defaming a policeman (likely related to an Occupy protest) is not something Google will remove.
Now, here's where is simply no transparency on this entire gambit hiding behind the word "Transparency".
We don't know the criteria for how Google makes decisions as to whether a takedown is "good" or "bad," i.e. oppressive of civil rights and/or frivilous. Obviously authoritarian governments misuse a system like this to harass their opponents.
As I noted in a comment from the floor during the last session of the Dublin conference, if an individual country might prosecute a handful of cases related to Internet and free speech, and the European Court might process, or at least accept for review, ten thousand here or ten thousand there from, say, the ex-Soviet countries, Google is now handling MILLIONS of cases. MILLIONs. And handling them very swiftly and peremptorily -- the Google gal told me that they have a million requests flowing through a week, and that they handle some with automated processes because they have a "trusted party" system. For example, RIAA is conceded as a "trusted party," despite the vehement hate for it by Cory Doctorow and other copyleftists, Google is a mature business operating by a basic sense of contract law and reputation, and for them, RIAA is a respectable and predictable filer -- it's putting in legitimate requests.
The Google rep said that Google respects copyright. I asked about the figure of 5 million pieces of content removed last year at the behest of copyright holders through DMCA takedown notices, and the report that Google satisfied 75%. "It's actually more like 97%," she said, and I'm not sure how the change happened. Five million! Thats a lot of ads sold against hijacked content! The rep said they remove items within 7 hours. Really, guys? But of course, from the moment the content is uploaded to the preparation and filing of the DMCA which can be time-consuming, Google gets the ad money.
Like Electronic Frontier Fondation with its "chilling effects" pages, Google likely hopes to pressure those asking for removal of content to give it up as pointless.
If anything, however, the more the requests are publicized, the more there will be. Now that states have this handy "GlavLit in the cloud" service from Google, they don't have to use up resources doing their own monitoring and staffing, they can just send a request to remove some content that may fail but which seems to be accepted.
But the most ominous aspect of this seemingly benign "Transparency" Report is that Google is letting us know that it makes a judgement about government requests and only removes them some of the time.
ON WHAT BASIS it makes that judgement is most certainly NOT transparent -- and scary.
Google hasn't signed any international rights covenants or the Helsinki accords; Google only plays at corporate accountability in its controlled Global Network Initiative with a nod to some principles.
It has no due process on its servers, as I pointed out in Dublin -- no written notification of who filed the charges against you (as far as we can see -- we don't know what notices are going out to people); no law of discovery, no right to face your accusers, no right to call witnesses, no remedies, no right to appeal, no adversarial defense and so on.
So we don't know how this giant court -- a troika in the sky -- is adjudicating cases or how it reaches decisions that this or that request is illegitimate. Google is positing itself as a trans-national, supra-multilaterial court in this regard -- and that's evil, because it's a court not functioning under basic notions of the rule of law.
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