Google Declines To Remove Police Brutality Videos, Still Complies With 63% Of Gov?t Takedown Requests

What happens when you're the de facto distribution platform for something like Occupy Wall St and other events that run afoul of the police? Well, you end up getting an email through semi-official channels saying "Would you please remove the video of Officer Pounder allegedly overstepping his authority" — and there's not much of a choice. As much as Google would like to avoid antagonizing local police forces, the backlash that would occur if they forcibly took down, say, Officer Bologna (Tony Bologna no less) pepper spraying those girls, would be lethal to the YouTube brand. Up it stays. On the other hand, there are plenty of legitimate takedown requests that come from governments when a video or other Google-hosted item is in fact illegal, so down they must come, whether they like it or not. It's a fine line to walk, and Google has hoped to make their position clear with their Transparency Report. The report corresponding to the first half of 2011 has an interesting little extra tidbit: "We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove." Why so specific?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/aOhyUQbEKME/

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