Google vs Brazil

In 2012 as a whole, Google received more than twice as many takedown requests as it had in 2011. “It’s become increasingly clear that the scope of government attempts to censor content on Google services has grown,” legal director Susan Infantino wrote. This varies country by country: some only bother the company a few times each year. Others get in touch multiple times each day. Among this latter group of countries, the one that has been the most aggressive about using Google to remove content—and the country who among top requesters, has had its requests shot down most often -- is Brazil. In 2011 and again in 2012, of all the countries in the world, Brazil asked Google to take down Internet content more times than any other country. Plenty of these had to do with defamation, which comprises about two-fifths of overall requests: Google’s social network, Orkut, is particularly popular in Brazil, and many of the 2011 requests related to defamation on Orkut and YouTube. But in 2012, a disproportionate number—235 court orders and three executive requests out of 697 total—related to violations of election law, the third most common reason countries cite for removing online material (second is privacy and security). Brazil’s election law, compared to those in the United States, are restrictive.