Google Refused Law Enforcement Request To Pull Police Brutality Video

A U.S. law enforcement agency petitioned Google to take down a YouTube video showing police brutality, the web giant revealed in a new report.

Google said it refused the request, placed sometime between January and June of this year, though it did not specify why.

"We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove," Google wrote in its Transparency Report. "Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests."

Of the 757 items that Google was asked to remove by the U.S. government in the first half of 2011, eighty percent were motivated by allegations of defamation.

The company complied with 63 percent of the U.S. government's requests. Google noted that it may decline to comply with requests to remove content because an agency has failed to obtain a court order.

"Some requests may not [be] specific enough for us to know what the government wanted us to remove (for example, no URL is listed in the request), and others involve allegations of defamation through informal letters from government agencies rather than a court orders [sic]," Google wrote. "We generally rely on courts to decide if a statement is defamatory according to local law."

The Atlantic’s Rebecca Rosen praised Google for its decision to deny the law enforcement agency’s request, arguing that the move sets a powerful precedent:

With this report, Google seems to be indicating that users who post such videos have the company's protection. In places like Egypt and Tunisia, the spread of videos portraying government brutality seems to have galvanized protesters. If Google were to take down such videos, that could have a powerful detrimental effect on the Occupy movement.

TechCrunch likewise suggests Google is attempting to send a message both to users and to governments in an attempt to position itself as a trustworthy resource:

I think that in this time of turmoil, Google is saying very quietly what it wouldn’t really be tactful to say loudly: “Put your sensitive and controversial video data here.” Certainly a site like LiveLeak is also an option, but YouTube finds itself the center of attention more frequently, and being more of a popular culture community, it wants to emphasize its legitimacy in matters like this. The transparency report is a way for them to encourage users to trust them, and perhaps, governments to respect them.

Between January and June 2011, American government entities filed 5,950 requests for information on Google users, 93 percent of which the company complied with.

The U.S. topped charts as the government that placed the third highest number of content removal requests, behind Brazil and Germany, but ahead of China. The U.S. also put in more requests for user data than any other country in the world.

Comments

[one1byke]

07:45 AM on 12/19/2011

Law Enforcement Wusses. Keep it up for all time.
or, at least we see that we're no different that Iran or Egypt . Syria... soon enough.

[gdokoupil]

09:31 PM on 11/01/2011

No attempt at cover up here. Full transparency at its finest! Not.
Kudos to you Google. Now why did you comply on the 63% you did take out?

[Charles Queen]

07:27 PM on 11/01/2011

Good for Google I say.Things like this need to be put out so everyone can see it

[Hempy]

05:06 PM on 11/01/2011

Sounds like government and law enforcement are having a problem with First Amendment rights. Do you suppose that our founders anticipated that so that's why they wrote it into the Constitution?

[cali-expat]

04:56 PM on 11/01/2011

"We generally rely on courts to decide if a statement is defamatory according to local law."

The use of the word "generally" is troubling - google.com should only remove content if and only if there is a court order. Otherwise, how is google.com any different from google.cn?

[Huminoid Typhoon]

02:52 PM on 11/01/2011

It is amazing to me that videos catching law enforcement doing something wrong are considered defamatory. It reminds me of what happened with Rodney King. The entire world is watching the police misbehave- watching them mistreat thousands of Americans. If they want this type of exposure to stop- then stop acting this way. Stop being power hungry and taking out your frustrations on innocent people that don't deserve it. Stop looking at your job as finding anything that anyone is doing wrong and making them pay- and instead look at it as protecting the peace and allowing people to live in peace. I have known a lot of really nice people that wanted to make the world a better place by becoming a police officer and instead turned into someone that would arrest a person for not seeing a change in the speed limit. This is just another branch of government that needs tremendous reform to become what it can be- where it actually SERVES the people that pay their salaries. I applaud google for making this choice and protecting our free speech and one of the few honest forms of media available. And it sickens me that the US- with all of our touted freedoms- requests user information more and tries to take down more videos than any other country. Big Brother is watching- but so are the rest of us!

[jimboy71]

10:09 PM on 10/31/2011

At least one company has a little bit of integrity.

[Bold Err]

04:18 PM on 10/31/2011

Almost certainly this request was from the City of Denver over a video of cops knocking down and beating a guy who was just standing on the sidelines of an arrest talking on his phone. Google the DeHerrera beating. Watch the video, and then prepare to be sickened: THE COPS KEPT THEIR JOBS!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtNSvk4UV7A

[Isaac Karjala]

04:47 PM on 10/31/2011

... or a Seattle cop shooting a partially deaf man for failure to follow verbal orders, or Ogden(, Utah) cops shooting a guy from over 6 feet away for brandishing a golf club when he heard unknown people (the cops... ) breaking into his home, or, or , or.........

[Uncle Kudzu]

07:42 PM on 10/31/2011

...or one of those two videos out there of the Birmingham Police Department gang beating unresisting suspects... How tragically hilarious - every locality just inserts its own punchline when it sees that headline.

[regis possino]

04:16 PM on 10/31/2011

I'm horrified, and disturbed, at the prospect of Google responding to, and succumbing to law enforcement, and the government 93% of the time, without a court order.
Over the years Google has distinguished itself as a leader in the social media world, and has actually helped to bring about change in third world countries through its open postings, which gave people an outlet for free expression previously denied by the regime.
What would have been the outcome in either of those countries if the government of Libya, or Egypt requested that all of the posting that placed the government agents, or police, in a bad light, or defamed them be removed. This country, and law enforcement, as well as the government should be held to the same standard. Free expression should not be stifled under any circumstances. This seems like another attempt by law enforcement to cover up its bad conduct , and to sweep it under the rug . This is a bad precedent,and should not be tolerated, lest we all remain uninformed,and the bad conduct of the police never brought to the light of day. On a personal note, what if there were postings on Google that I, as an ordinary citizen, wanted removed because I contended they were defamatory. Would Google comply? Absolutely not, without a court order! The government should be held at least to the same standard as its governed. Let a judge decide, not a Law Enforcement or Government agency, trying to hides misconduct.

[lerican]

04:27 PM on 11/01/2011

Regis: Your alarmist response claims that 93% were made without court order, but nowhere in the article is it stated that 93% were without court order. I suspect that most had court orders and others Google felt had compelling reasons (e.g. personal safety) to cooperate. Your use of the word succumb assumes that Google rolled over without giving each request serious thought. Calm down.

[bytebroker]

03:46 PM on 10/31/2011

I think that people have the right to post videos depicting the abuse of power by public officials including and especially law enforcement. Abuse of power cannot be tolerated by a society that pays for and expects professionalism and excellence from these entities. Brutality and Bullying should be cause for immediate termination.

[mikala]

03:31 PM on 10/31/2011

I guess cops, politicians, bankers and CEO's should learn that in this new digital media age we are all being watched. While I believe that there is good and bad that goes along with this capability I do believe this has the potential to be more positive than negative. There is something refreshing about seeing the shoe on the other foot for a change. So my message to all is be where, if your actions are illegal, immoral or anything you could be ashamed of remember someone may be watching and it could include the whole world.

[Skye8i8]

02:44 PM on 10/31/2011

wow, google is doing something good for a change. however, given google's invasive track record we are forced to ask - is google doing this because it's the right thing to do? or because google wants some good p.r.?

as america increasingly becomes a heavy-handed police state where more and more cops are doing anything *but* ''protecting and serving'' us little guys, will google be honorable enough to allow these truths to continue to be posted at youtube, even when these truths are embarrassing for police departments? truths that have jack webb turning over in his grave...

or will google sell out us little guys to the power-hungry politicos and corporations?

[Isaac Karjala]

04:56 PM on 10/31/2011

control of infrastructure needs to be radically localized.......... the technology for wide spread meshnets utilizing peer-peer architecture is already here.

[Kenneth Spradlin]

02:39 PM on 10/31/2011

Google complied with 93% of 6000 Government request for personal info over a period of 6 months,,.Should have been 0%. What's the story on that Google?

[Dinkster]

07:15 PM on 11/01/2011

Unfortunately, the Patriot Act all but forces their hands. I'm surprised that there is even a seven percent. Probably that seven percent forgot to claim it was a terrorist investigation.

[1ccc1]

02:32 PM on 10/31/2011

Actually goog does censor that which it does not like, such as video showing war crimes. This story seems like a do-gooder cover for the fact that google is itself a power e; stealing wifi data, and on another page it appears they skew yelp results. It's not wise to see a company this large as without it's share of dirt.

[aphextwin07]

01:17 PM on 10/31/2011

I'm glad a company as large as Google has no problem denying such requests, and reading an article like this gives me that much more respect for them.