Google Refuses to Take Down Videos of Police Brutality

Precedent set in Google's Transparency Report could give protesters, victims of harassment more leverage against the 5-0.

Those Occupiers in Oakland, Boston and elsewhere might not have too many friends in the police these days, but they can count on the support of Google, at least. The Atlantic's Rebecca Rosen concludes after reading Google's Transparency Report that their decision to refuse to comply with two police requests to take down videos of police brutality means the web giant has set a precedent in favour of keeping those videos online unless they are proven to be defamatory. Says Rosen:

"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."

Not to mention those battling the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad or Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh, or even the run-of-the-mill encounters of police incompetence across Canada that bubble up on YouTube far too routinely. Granted, Google did comply with a staggering 93 per cent of requests from governments and police to hand over user data, and agreed to take down content in 62 per cent of the cases brought to their attention, citing copyright violation, excessive violence, or defamation.