Google has cooperated with authoritarian regimes, including Russia and China, by complying with censorship requests and removing content critical of governments, according to an investigation by the Observer.
Since 2011, Google has engaged with 150 different governments that have requested content be scrubbed from public domains. These requests have come not only from democratic administrations but also from dictatorships and sanctioned regimes, including the police in Afghanistan.
The investigation found that Google has removed content, including YouTube videos, at the request of the Chinese and Russian governments. The removed content included videos of anti-government protests and material accusing politicians of corruption.
