[kictanet] Google Statistics on Government Censorship Requests

[Walubengo J]

McTim - my reaction in caps (though am not shouting ;-) on some of your comments.

1: The map shows no requests from KE gov't.- 
VERY TRUE AND I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THAT, OTHER THAN THINKING MAYBE THEY ARE NOT AWARE GOOGLE CAN "ASSIST".
 



2. Is 
this actually the case?  If Google removes content, then it's not 
"blocked" per country is it, it's removed for all.


MUCHERU COULD CLARIFY. BUT BASICALLY I DO NOT THINK GOOGLE REMOVES CONTENT "GLOBALLY" BECAUSE WHAT IS ILLEGAL IN ONE COUNTRY IS NOT NECESSARILY SO IN THE OTHER - THINK HITLER-RELATED CONTENT; THAT'S LARGELY A BIG NO IN GERMANY BUT ELSEWHERE ITS NOT A BIG DEAL.
 
3. If it was the case, one could easily use a proxy to access Google 
content blocked to a certain set of IP address ranges.

TRUE - BUT YOU ARE TECHIE SO YOU KNOW; HOWEVER 99.999% OF SOCIETY MIGHT NOT AND SO THE "WEAK" CONTROL WILL STILL SERVE THE PURPOSE.
 

mmhhh...talk of technology 
controlling society.


4.I
 can't parse this one, sorry.


NO PROBLEM - UPDATE YOUR COMPILER ;-) NWAY, I THINK WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS OF AN OMNIPRESENT TECHNOLOGY SUCH AS GOOGLE. A TIME IS COMING WHEN MUCHERU AND Co (GOOGLE) WILL CONTROL WHAT YOU READ, SEE AND HEAR. I CAN ONLY ENVY THEIR POSITION.

walu.

--- On Fri, 4/23/10, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:

From: McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Google Statistics on Government Censorship Requests
To: "Walubengo J" <jwalu at yahoo.com>
Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Date: Friday, April 23, 2010, 11:26 AM

Walu,

Let's look at this critically;

On Fri, Apr 23, 2010 at 9:22 AM, Walubengo J <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:


Check this out this interesting link

http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/




First of all this is a great move by Google to increase transparency, no?  



Apparently Google is more government friendly than imagined - it tends to comply with most Government requests to block certain content/services...



Secondly, they don't block services IIUC, just contnet.

So let's examine the league leader, Brazil, with 291 removal requests.

291 removal requests

82.5% of removal 
requests fully or partially complied with.
of these 291, 185 are by court order, so of course they "had" to do those (for some value of "had").  So 106 were "voluntary", that is ~36%.



When you factor in the AUPs for orkut, blogger and youtube, one can assume that at least some of the rest were violations of those AUPs.

21 Blogger (court order)5 Blogger

4
 Gmail (court order)1 Google Suggest99 orkut (court 
order)119 orkut9 Web Search (court order)32 
YouTube (court order)1 YouTube 

(this makes me wonder what their beef was with China).  


Beef seemingly was that Google was willing to bend, but China pushed them to the breaking point.  Plus the whole hacking thing.  I applaud Google for their actions on China.


 


So anyway, when Google complies with Govt requests, it means that when users in Kenya search for e.g.  kenyan-hate-speech related content they wont see that;

The map shows no requests from KE gov't.



 

 but if the same Kenyan does the same search from the US territory, they can see the very hate-speech that has been blocked within the Kenyan territory...


Is this actually the case?  If Google removes content, then it's not "blocked" per country is it, it's removed for all.



If it was the case, one could easily use a proxy to access Google content blocked to a certain set of IP address ranges.

 


mmhhh...talk of technology controlling society.



I can't parse this one, sorry.



-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel




      
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