Rumor Alert: Google Refused to Remove Police Brutality Videos, But Not From Occupy Oakland

There’s an unsubstantiated rumor making the rounds that law enforcement asked Google to remove YouTube videos of police brutality captured during Occupy Oakland protests.

While Google recently acknowledges law enforcement has made such requests in the past, the allegation that one such request was made to remove footage of the Occupy Oakland protests seems to be based on a misinterpretation of a transparency report the search giant released Wednesday.

In the report, Google details requests it receives from governments to remove content and reveal information about users. It releases such reports every six months.

This time around, the “observations” section for the U.S. states:

“We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. 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.”

Because the report was released the day before police fired tear gas at Occupy Oakland protesters, some news organizations and individuals have conflated the two events and mistakenly concluded that police asked Google to remove videos of that incident.

In fact, the report refers only to reports made between January and June 2011 — several months before Occupy Wall Street appeared in the physical world.

Throughout this period, there were two incidents in which Google was requested to remove videos for reasons filed as “defamation.” The company says it has categorized requests to remove police brutality under this category.

We have reached out to Google for more information about the context of these requests and will update this article when we hear back.

Posted in: Tech News