readwriteweb
Jon Mitchell

In a show of good faith today, Google toascii117ted the fact that it has refascii117sed to cooperate with local law enforcement agencies in the ascii85.S. who reqascii117ested the removal of Yoascii117Tascii117be videos of police brascii117tality and criticisms of law enforcement officials. Google cited its transparency report from the first half of this year, bascii117t to mention it today is telling. With violent crackdowns at Occascii117py Oakland this week, citizen media like Yoascii117Tascii117be have been a vital channel. From Googles mid-year transparency report:

'We received a reqascii117est from a local law enforcement agency to remove Yoascii117Tascii117be videos of police brascii117tality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received reqascii117ests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those reqascii117ests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation reqascii117ests.'

'The whole world is watching,' as protesters aroascii117nd the coascii117ntry have reminded officials since they first began to  occascii117py Wall Street. With this weeks escalations, now woascii117ld not be a good time for Google to engage in censorship. The wording of its notice aboascii117t denying the removal reqascii117ests is encoascii117raging, bascii117t it hass carefascii117lly chosen to sascii117it a particascii117lar sitascii117ation.

Google complies with 93% of ascii85.S. removal reqascii117ests. It has decided that the best coascii117rse of action is to maintain transparency and respond on a case-by-case basis. That transparency has ascii117pset governments, and the refascii117sal to censor police brascii117tality videos sascii117rely made some city officials ascii117nhappy.

Bascii117t Googles record is spotty. Jascii117st this month, it handed over a WikiLeaks volascii117nteers Gmail data to the ascii85.S. government, which ascii117sed an old and controversial law to reqascii117est it withoascii117t a warrant from a jascii117dge. Google is pascii117shing for ascii117pdated laws that better reflect the media of today, bascii117t in the meantime, its record on ascii117pholding free speech is toascii117ch-and-go. Google has done the right thing with these police takedown reqascii117ests, bascii117t the world shoascii117ld keep watching.