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Web giant says it received more than 1,000 requests from government officials for the removal of content in the past six months, complying with more than half.

Google reports it has seen an "alarming" incidence in government requests to censor Internet content in the past six months.

The Web giant said it received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world to remove items such as YouTube videos and search listings. The company, which said it complied with more than half the requests, released a catalog of those requests as part of its bi-annual Global Transparency Report.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, said in a blog post. "When we started releasing this data, in 2010, we noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Google said it had received 461 court orders for the removal of 6,989 items, consenting to 68 percent of those orders. It also received 546 informal requests, complying with 46 percent of those requests. The study doesn't reflect censorship activity from countries such as China and Iran, which block content without notifying Google.

"Just like every other time, we've been asked to take down political speech," Chou wrote. "It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- western democracies not typically associated with censorship."

Among the take-down requests was a Polish demand for removal of an article critical of a development agency, a Spanish request for removal of 270 blogs and links to articles critical of the public figures, and a Canadian official's request for removal of a YouTube video of a man urinating on his passport and flushing it down a toilet. All were denied.

However, the company said it complied with the majority of requests from Thai authorities for the removal of 149 YouTube videos that allegedly insulted the monarchy, a violation of Thailand law. The Web giant said it also granted U.K. police requests for removal of five YouTube accounts that allegedly promoted terrorism. Google also said it complied with 42 percent of U.S. requests for the removal of 187 pieces of content, most of which were related to harassment.

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Google sees 'alarming' level of government censorship

16-06-2012 03:26 Dan Willis is one of the Disclosure Project's twenty Top Secret military witnesses that testified at the National Press Club in Washington DC in 2001 in front of every major media, an event that should have changed the world but was manipulated by a controlled media. He explains the history of how a secret government operating illegally within our National Security system has maintained control of the media and secrecy for over 50 years. He served in the US Navy as a high speed code operator at the Naval Communication Station in San Francisco as well as combat action in Vietnam. An ex-radio broadcast engineer and ABC newsman, Dan has taken a keen interest in how the media has withheld disclosure of the full message to the public, a message based on the hundreds of credible military and intelligence witness testimonies. Disclosure Project site

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Alien Disclosure and Media Manipulation with Dan Willis - Video

17-06-2012 20:08 AKA CROWD CONTROL

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KURT BUSCH MEDIA CONTROL - Video

FRANCE'S Socialists have won control of parliament, handing President Francois Hollande the convincing majority he needs to push through his tax-and-spend agenda to battle the eurozone debt crisis.

The Socialists' bloc obtained 314 seats - an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly - and so will not need to rely on the Greens or the far left, according to official results.

The far-right National Front was set to return to parliament for the first time since 1998 after winning two seats in the south of the country, although party leader Marine Le Pen lost her own bid for a seat.

Mr Hollande, who defeated conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election in May, had urged voters to give him the MPs he needs to steer France through the eurozone crisis, rising unemployment and a faltering economy.

"The task before us is immense," Hollande's Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said as results came in from the run-off vote. "Nothing will be easy."

Mr Sarkozy's UMP and its allies won 229 seats, the Socialist-allied Greens 17 seats and the far-left Left Front 10, according to final results released by the interior ministry yesterday.

While Mr Le Pen's anti-immigrant and anti-EU National Front (FN) was set to return two to four MPs to parliament, she will not be among them.

Mr Le Pen, who has said her success in the first-round parliamentary vote made her party France's "third political force", demanded a recount after she was narrowly defeated by a Socialist in a northern former mining constituency.

But the telegenic Le Pen nevertheless rejoiced in the overall success of her party, whose image she has fought to soften from the days of her father Jean-Marie's provocative outbursts.

"This is an enormous success," Marine Le Pen said in Henin-Beaumont.

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Socialists take majority control in France

* Fairfax to restructure Sydney Morning Herald, The Age

* About 1,900 jobs to go, sees annual savings of A$235 mln

* Media (Frankfurt: 725292 - news) sector in major shakeup, News Ltd seen cutting staff

* Fairfax confirms Rinehart has lifted stake to 18.7 pct

* Fairfax shares rise 7.4 pct, market up 2 pct (Adds investor comment)

MELBOURNE, June 18 (Reuters) - Australia's Fairfax Media (Munich: 884229 - news) , publisher of some of the country's leading newspapers, will overhaul its top mastheads and slash almost one-fifth of its staff, the beginning of a widespread shakeup of Australia's media sector.

The media industry's old guard is struggling with a massive shift online, declining advertising revenues for newspaper and TV, and shrinking market share for free-to-air TV as consumers' choices multiply for news and entertainment.

Fairfax - which publishes the 181-year-old Sydney Morning Herald, Australia's oldest newspaper, as well as the Australian Financial Review and Melbourne's The Age - said it will cut 1,900 jobs over three years from its staff of 10,000.

It will also shut two printing plants and reduce broadsheet newspapers to tabloid formats as it refocuses towards online distribution.

"All the world's newspaper companies are experimenting with what sustainability looks like," said Margaret Simons, the head of the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advanced Journalism.

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UPDATE 3-Australia's Fairfax to slash newspaper jobs as media landscape shifts