Which government censors the tech giants the most?
In 2009, Google started recording the number of content removal requests it received from courts and government agencies all over the world, disclosing the figures on a six-month basis. Soon after, several other companies followed suit, including Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and Wikimedia.
This year, we’ve extended our study of the above to include Pinterest, Dropbox, Reddit, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Tumblr. Our study looks at the number of content removal requests by platform, which countries have the highest rates of content removal per 100,000 internet users, and how things have changed on a year-by-year basis.
The owners of Google and Facebook were both heavily fined for using cookies illegally at the tail end of 2021 by the French data protection authority, Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Liberté (CNIL). On the French versions of Google, its sister platform YouTube, and Facebook, users were being asked to consent to cookies in such a way that it was much easier for them to accept than reject the request. They could accept cookies with just one click but there was a more laborious process for refusing. Google owner Alphabet was fined €150 million (£125 million) and Facebook owner…
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