Google Refuses to Take Down Police Brutality Videos Despite Pressure from Law Enforcement

Google has refused to take down online videos showing police brutality despite a petition from a US law enforcement agency. The Huffington Post reports that the petition was made earlier this year although Google has not clarified as to why it rejected the petition.

“We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove,” Google said in a report. ”Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.”

In the first half of 2011, Google has so far been asked to remove 757 items; 80% percent of content was asked to be removed due to accusations of defamation.

“Some requests may not [be] specific enough for us to know what the government wanted us to remove (for example, no URL is listed in the request), and others involve allegations of defamation through informal letters from government agencies rather than a court orders [sic],” Google said. ”We generally rely on courts to decide if a statement is defamatory according to local law.”