Government requests for content removal on Google climbed to nearly 330 000, with an annual average growth rate of 34% since 2020.
This is according to a global Surfshark study, which found that the number of requests has more than doubled, having started at over 44 000 in 2020 and surpassing 100 000 by 2023.
“Government requests to remove content from Google shed light on the legal rules that govern online access to information,” says Emilija Kucinskaite, senior researcher at Surfshark. “These requests often focus on political content or criticism of government actions. To justify such restrictions, governments typically cite laws related to defamation, privacy and security, or copyright.
“Google reviews each request carefully to determine if the content breaks any laws or violates its policies before deciding how to proceed.”
Some data about country’s and their Google content removal requests include:
- Since 2020, nearly 330 000 requests have been submitted, originating from almost 150 countries, with an annual average growth rate of 34%.
- In this decade, three countries have accounted for around 80% of the total content removal requests.
- Russia accounts for 64% of the total, with over 211 000 requests (almost 130 per day).
- South Korea is second, with 10% of requests, totaling nearly 33 000 requests or approximately 20 per day.
- India follows with 5%, translating to almost 16 000 requests or around nine per day.
- Among the top 15 with the highest number of Google removal requests are also Taiwan, Turkey, Brazil, Bangladesh, France, Pakistan, the US, Australia, Germany, Vietnam, the UK and Indonesia.
- Notably, of all countries or regions not in this list (about 90% of all countries) submitted fewer than one request per day on average.
Courts and government agencies may request to remove content from Google products and services — from Blogger and Google Translate to Gmail. However, this decade, the majority of requests have been directed towards YouTube, which accounts for 54% of requests. Web Search is in second place accounting for 31% of requests. Together, these two platforms account for 85% of the received content removal requests.
Each request is categorised by reason, with over 20 different grounds for requesting content removal from Google products or services. This decade, the three most common reasons have been National Security, with over 96 000 requests; Copyright, with nearly 71 000 requests; and Privacy and Security, with more than 37 000 requests. Together, these three reasons account for over 60% of content removal requests globally.
Privacy and Security requests primarily focus on Web Search, YouTube, and Google Images.
Defamation-related requests are mainly directed at YouTube, Web Search, and Local Reviews.
Fraud-related requests predominantly target Google Ads, YouTube, and Web Search.