Google censors posts because dictatorships tell it to

Remember a few years ago when I lambasted Google because they were making money off my old posts and telling me I needed a court order to remove my own messages? Remember also how they allowed archived posts to be modified by parties impersonating the original poster?

Google won't let people delete their own posts - but they let authoritarian regimes delete people's posts just because they criticize government policies. A new "transparency report" by Google shows that content removal requests by governments around the world rose 26% in the last 6 months of last year. A Google official says, "As we've gathered and released more data over time, it's become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown."

This report wouldn't reflect so poorly on Google except that they actually comply with these requests! The government of Russia, for example, made 114 removal requests during that time frame. Google enforced about one-third of these frivolous demands.

That is so, so dumb.

In addition to protecting people from Google making money off their posts without permission, Congress needs to step in and prohibit them from complying with third-party cancel requests by dictatorships. American companies aren't supposed to give a shit what repressive regimes think.

(Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/25/google_transparency_report_politicians)