Removing Incivility from Google: Exploring the Determinants of Government Takedown Requests across Societies

Online uncivil contents pose new global challenges to policy-makers. Governments around the world have taken various actions to regulate content online. Making requests to tech companies such as Google to remove illegal and harmful content is a unique means of regulation. It is important for researchers to understand the factors and mechanisms that drive government requests as the number of requests for content removal have been rising continuously over the years. Using content removal data provided by 2017 Google transparency report, this study reveals that protecting rights and interests of vulnerable groups and maintaining social stability are two major predictors of government requests for content removal in democracies. Interestingly, rule of law has no influence over the number of Google takedown requests while freedom of speech is an important predictor only in democratic societies. Moreover, none of societal level predictors have been found to be significant in non-democratic societies.