The countries where Facebook censors the most content

By Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai2014-11-07 17:00:05 UTC

As Facebook expands, countries are increasingly interested in making content on the social network disappear.

Censorship on Facebook increased 19% between the first six months of 2014 and the last six months of 2013, the company revealed on Tuesday. But censorship isn't distributed evenly; some countries are more trigger-happy than others when asking Facebook to remove content.

Facebook only removed some content in 15 of the 83 counties listed on the network's third transparency report. India leads the list of content removal; Facebook restricted 4,960 "pieces of content" from the country between January and June 2014. Turkey and Pakistan follow closely with 1,893 and 1,773 "pieces of content" removed, respectively.

After India, Turkey and Pakistan, there is a big gap. Facebook only removed 34 pieces of content from the No. 4 country on the list, Germany.

A Facebook spokesperson said the company restricts access to content only when it is "illegal under local law." Facebook doesn't release many details on the content it restricts or what laws the restrictions are based on but does explain the reasons for removals in each country, in broad strokes.

Facebook said that the requests came "primarily" from law enforcement officials and the India Computer Emergency Response Team.

These requests, according to Facebook, were based on "local laws prohibiting criticism of a religion or the state" language that suggests some were to suppress political speech.

The situation is similar in Turkey, where content was primarily restricted "under local laws prohibiting defamation or criticism of Ataturk or the Turkish state." For Zeynep Tufecki, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, this indicates some censorship, and Facebook should clarify what it restricts and why.

"I'd like to see breakdown of the censored content," Tufecki told Mashable, referring also to requests for user data. "I don't think anyone is going to object if they are sharing information with police in cases of probable cause in child abuse, for example. But we don't know."

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The countries where Facebook censors the most content