What Russia Wants from Google: Vladimir Putin Wants Got Chocolate Post Taken Down
Russia and Vladimir Putin have always been at odds with other nations including treating terms like "chocolate" as breach of federal offense. In the recent Transparency Report from Google, the tech giant reveals the takedown demands from different government bodies - some approved, some denied.
In Russia's case, the country wanted to delete a blog containing the terms "got chocolate." Under the country's laws, the term "chocolate" can also serve as a subtle drug reference. The blog site was linked to recreational drug violating the law. Russian legislation requires that pages or materials with drug-related content should be taken down. This is only one of the many request and correspondence that occurred between Google and Russia. In another incident, Russia wanted to take out a YouTube video documentary featuring suicide. While Google argued that the video opened people's minds to seeking help, Russia claimed it also violated a law.
Tech Crunch reported that while some countries eased up on their requests to Google. Russia did otherwise along with Thailand and Italy. The site quoted Google: "You may notice that this total decreased slightly from the first half of 2013; this is due to a spike in requests from Turkey during that period, which has since returned to lower levels."
"Meanwhile, the number of requests from Russia increased by 25 percent compared to the last reporting period. Requests from Thailand and Italy are on the rise as well."
Tech Crunch even raised that Russia's numbers may even go up once Google releases a new report on 2014 figures.
As mentioned, this is among the countless requests Google receives from official bodies across the globe. For instance, Thailand requested YouTube to delete around 300 videos considered insulting to the Thai royal family. Google did not process the request as the Thailand government requested videos be removed for every user throughout the world. Additionally, a Royal Thai Parliament member requested Google to take out a search result leading to content supposedly defamatory to the member. Google denied the request with respect to public interest.