Google Reports Over 25,000 Content Removal Requests from Russia
Between July and December 2023, Google received 25,925 content removal requests from Russia. The majority of these requests (25,607) came from Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal communications regulator. Additionally, 16 requests were court orders directed at Google, and 290 were court orders addressed to third parties.
Of the total requests, 17,706 concerned YouTube, 7,344 were related to web search, and 287 involved Blogger. In total, the requests targeted 299,014 pieces of content.
Main Reasons for Content Removal Requests
- National security: 10,704 requests
- Copyright infringement: 7,471 requests
- Drug-related content: 1,691 requests
Google also received 223 requests to remove content in accordance with Russian law No. 276-FZ, which requires anonymizers and search engines to restrict access to prohibited information. These requests affected 740,058 URLs.
The company reported that it removed 54% of the “disputed content.” According to Google’s transparency report: “We may refuse to remove materials for various reasons. Some requests lack specific information about what government agencies want us to remove (for example, the URL may not be provided). In other cases, the content may have already been removed by the author. Note that not all court orders sent to us require Google to take specific action.”
Statistics Since 2011
Since 2011, Russia has submitted a total of 277,957 requests concerning 2,461,110 pieces of content. Globally, Google received 43,554 requests during the same reporting period. The top three reasons worldwide were:
- National security (11,261 requests)
- Copyright (7,988 requests)
- Privacy and security (6,168 requests)
User Data Requests
The latest report does not include information about user data requests. In the first half of 2023, Russia submitted 27 such requests, affecting 64 accounts, and Google provided some data in 59% of those cases. Globally, there were 211,201 user data requests concerning 436,326 accounts.