Which country leads censorship requests to Google by population - or internet users?

Which country leads censorship requests to Google by population - or internet users?

Always assuming, of course, that you don't include China in the 'censorship' figures released this week !

Surveillance. Photo by quinn.anya on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Google's 'censorship' tool, released this week in what it said was an attempt to make more open the instances where governments try to control what is on the web, is fascinating. The Datablog pulled all the data down into a spreadsheet (where you can find the original numbers such as data requests about users, and removal requests for content).

But the one big weakness of those raw numbers - showing demands to provide details about users, or to remove content (the latter often ordered by judges, who aren't exactly "government") - is that they aren't balanced by how many people live in those countries, or how many are actually online there.

So here's a mashup of that data - using population and internet penetration data from Internet World Stats and Wikipedia.

What is fascinating is how, once you allow for the level of internet connectivity, it's Brazil which was the biggest source of trouble for Google - principally because of its Orkut social network, which has taken off there and never given up.

Yet it's plucky Armenia which leads the content removal requests per million people connected - a fascinating wrinkle in the statistics that we'll be asking Google about when we get a moment.

Worth noting though that India and the UK are next up in data requests per million connected. That's rather worrying, because those are aimed at getting information about people, not removing content. Why is the UK so high in that? Who's making the requests? What for? (If you need a reminder of the meanings of the two, read the original story from Tuesday.)

Your thoughts on what else this might mean are of course welcome.
Google censorship demands from government and judiciary, adjusted for population and internet connectedness
Country

Population

internet
penetration %

data requests
per million

removal requests
per million

data requests per
million connected

removal requests
per million
connected

Data sources: Google, Wikipedia, Internet World Stats
Argentina 40134425 49.4 2.4 1 4.9 2.1
Armenia 3230100 5.8 0 3.1 0 53.4
Australia 20111000 80.1 7.7 0.8 9.6 1.1
Belgium 10999000 52.8 6.1 0.5 11.5 0.9
Brazil 181586030 34 20.2 1.6 59.3 4.7
Canada 31946000 84.3 1.3 0.5 1.5 0.6
China 1337080000 28.7 0 0 0 0
France 60200000 58.1 14.1 0.1 24.2 0.1
Germany 82491000 63.8 5.6 2.3 8.7 3.6
India 1068214000 3.7 1 0.1 26.8 3.6
Israel 7531900 52 4 0.7 7.7 1.3
Italy 57553000 59.7 9.6 1 16 1.7
Japan 127687000 75.5 0.3 0 0.5 0.1
Netherlands 16275000 85.6 4.1 0.3 4.8 0.4
Singapore 4987600 58.6 12.4 1 21.2 1.7
Switzerland 7391000 75.5 5.7 0.7 7.5 0.9
United Kingdom 59778000 76.4 19.5 1 25.5 1.3
United States 293655000 68.6 12.2 0.4

http://www.guardian.co.uk / Bulgaria Today