Google removed 640 YouTube ‘terror videos’

London: Google has revealed that it took down 640 videos from YouTube that allegedly promoted terrorism, in the second half of 2011 after complaints from the UK police. 

The Internet search giant said it terminated five accounts linked to the suspect videos following complaints from the UK's Association of Police Officers. 

The firm, however, said it had rejected many other state's requests for action. 

According to The BBC, Google also refused to delete six YouTube videos that satirised Pakistan's Army and senior politicians. 

The order had come from the government of Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology. 

Overall, Google said it had received 461 court orders covering a total of 6,989 items between July and December 2011. 

It added that it had received a further 546 informal requests covering 4,925 items, of which it had agreed to 43 percent of the cases. 

The report quoted Google's senior policy analyst, Dorothy Chou, as saying that the firm was concerned by the amount of requests that had been linked to political speech. 

“It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect - Western democracies not typically associated with censorship,” Chou said. 

According to the report, the revelations come in its latest Transparency Report, which discloses requests by international authorities to remove or hand over material. 

source: http://zeenews.india.com/news/world/google-removed-640-youtube-terror-videos_782512.html