Google’s Artificial Intelligence Principles state the company will not pursue technologies that cause harm, “that gather or use information for surveillance” or “whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”



There is increasing evidence of a contradiction between Google’s principles and its actions.



Buzzfeed reported: “According to Google’s own stats, the Russian government has made 175 separate requests for the search engine to remove sites it has banned, totaling more than 160,000 separate URLS...About 80% of the total requests...resulted in removal.” PEN America said: “we need far more transparency regarding which sites Google has removed from its search results, as well as the internal evaluation and criteria that Google used for determining whether these sites should be taken down.”



ARTICLE 19 submitted expert opinion to Russia’s Constitutional Court regarding the removal of articles on hate crimes from Google search, saying: “search engine operators are prohibited by the Law from disclosing any information pertaining to the applicant’s request...this constitutes a disproportionate restriction on the right to freedom of expression… and a breach of their rights to a fair trial and to an effective remedy.”



In addition, reports of proposed amendments to India’s Information Technology Act indicate that it may soon be mandatory for firms like Alphabet to proactively deploy technology to suppress content.



Google states its Transparency Reports “provide a glimpse at the wide range of content removal requests that we receive, but they are not comprehensive.”



In 2018, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression’s report stated: “the authoritative global standard for ensuring freedom of expression on [companies’] platforms is human rights law, not the varying laws of States or their own private interests, and [companies] should re-evaluate their content standards accordingly.”



Proponents suggest the report assess the feasibility of:



• Incorporating into Google’s Transparency Report the substantive content of government requests, including whether the request was met, and criteria used to guide decisions;
• Notifying customers of content affected by government requests.