"So today, as we release data about requests from governments to remove content from our services for the ninth time, we're doing it with a new look and some new features that we hope will make the information more meaningful, and continue to push the envelope on the story we can tell with this kind of information," Google said in a blog post on Monday.
The Google report showed examples of governments from around the world asking the company to remove everything from information accusing judges of corruption, politician sex scandals to videos of minors fighting. From June through December of 2013 Google said that the company received 3,105 government requests to take down 14,637 pieces of content.
Russia, Thailand and Italy were among the countries that have increased the number of requests to remove content from Google in the 2013 reporting period, the company said, mentioning that other countries including the United States, Brazil, France and India and Australia also sent Google multiple censorship requests.
According to the data Google collected during the second half of the 2013, the top three pieces of content which governments asked the company to remove were 1,066 pieces of blog content, 841 requests of search content and 765 requests for Youtube content.
Additionally, 38 percent of governments claimed that content needed to be removed due to defamation, 16 percent of governments said obscenity or nudity was the reason of their request, while 11 percent said their requests were due to privacy or security.
"Our Transparency Report is certainly not a comprehensive view of censorship online," Google said. "However, it does provide a lens on the things that governments and courts ask us to remove, underscoring the importance of transparency around the processes governing such requests."
Google launched its Transparency Report in 2010 as a way to show how "law and policies affect access to information online including law enforcement orders for user data and government requests to remove information."
