Stark increase in government takedown requests in Lumen

In the last few years, journalists, activists, and civil society members have noted that authoritarian national governments are increasingly relying on digital tools to control what information is available to their citizens online. The weaponization of government takedown requests has become a key strategy to meet this goal. Government takedown requests are a legitimate tool for removing illegal online content such as hate speech and terrorist content, but are increasingly being misused to remove lawful government criticism or other types of information that conflict with a governments’ preferred narrative. Some of the most telling evidence of this trend of increasing misuse of government takedown requests has surfaced as a result of Online Service Providers (OSPs), most notably Twitter and Google, being transparent about what information governments have asked them to remove from their services by sharing copies of the governments’ requests and demands with the Lumen database.