Google, which controls a vast portion of the global information ecosystem, has been complicit in censorship efforts led by oppressive governments, not out of obligation or necessity, but for profit. Investigations have revealed that Google has actively facilitated content suppression in Russia and China, knowingly assisting totalitarian regimes in controlling public discourse. The company’s actions call into question its culpability in restricting access to information, helping dictatorships maintain power, and profiting from oppressive practices that stifle dissent and human rights.
Google’s Profit-Driven Cooperation with Authoritarian Regimes
Since 2011, Google has worked with over 150 governments in responding to takedown requests, but its interactions with Russia and China stand out for their scale and the nature of the content removed. While some governments seek to take down content that violates copyright or privacy laws, Russia and China have used Google’s compliance to suppress political opposition, cover up corruption, and erase inconvenient truths.
According to Google’s own transparency reports, there have been 5.6 million instances where it has “named” content for removal at the request of governments. This number has more than doubled since 2020, with Russia alone accounting for over 60% of takedown requests in recent years. Despite Google’s claims of evaluating each request carefully, the company’s pattern of compliance suggests a different motive—profits. With billions in annual revenue, including from advertising and services in these regions, Google has shown it is willing to appease oppressive governments if it means securing its bottom line.
Censorship in Russia: Aiding the Kremlin’s Digital Repression
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has created one of the world’s most sophisticated digital censorship systems, and Google has played an undeniable role in its enforcement. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s state communications regulator, frequently demands that Google remove politically sensitive content, and time and again, the tech giant has complied.
Google has removed YouTube videos that exposed “corruption among politicians” or that included “some rhetorical threats of violent action against the alleged corrupt politicians.” Even content that was merely critical of Russian history, patriotic holidays, and military policy was erased from Google’s Blogger platform. By complying, Google helped the Kremlin manufacture an artificial sense of political unity while shielding its corrupt leadership from scrutiny.
The most egregious example came in 2021, during the Russian election period, when Google temporarily blocked opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting recommendations. This was done at the behest of Roskomnadzor and “other Russian government entities.” Additionally, Google removed Navalny’s Smart Voting app from its Play Store, silencing one of the Kremlin’s most vocal critics and effectively aiding Putin’s election suppression tactics.
In 2022, Google continued to aid Russian authorities by censoring multiple YouTube videos calling for protests against Putin’s government. YouTube, which has billions of users worldwide, became a tool of oppression in Russia, allowing the Kremlin to control what its citizens saw and thought. Google’s complicity in this process cannot be excused—it knowingly helped a regime that jails and even murders its critics.
Google’s Role in China’s Totalitarian Surveillance State
China’s censorship apparatus is even more extensive than Russia’s, and Google has repeatedly assisted the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in suppressing dissent and maintaining strict control over its citizens. While Google officially withdrew its search engine from China in 2010 due to censorship demands, it has continued to facilitate the CCP’s efforts to control public discourse.
At the request of China’s Ministry of Public Security, Google removed more than 200 videos, many of which contained allegations of “corruption within the political system in the People’s Republic of China or stories about top government officials.” This kind of censorship is crucial to the CCP’s survival, as it prevents citizens from learning the full extent of their leaders’ corruption and abuses of power.
Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, has also been found to reflect CCP propaganda. When asked about China’s top leader Xi Jinping, Gemini responded that he was “an excellent leader” who “will lead the Chinese people continuously toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” Likewise, when asked about the CCP, it parroted state-approved messaging, claiming that the party “represents the fundamental interest of the Chinese people.” Meanwhile, when Gemini was asked about U.S. human rights issues, it readily cited a plethora of concerns, including police brutality and government surveillance—contrasting its silence on Chinese abuses.
This pattern is no accident. Google’s own AI training data appears to be heavily influenced by Chinese state narratives, and experts have pointed out that “these are all sources the Chinese government has flooded with its preferred narratives, and we may be seeing the impact of this on large language models.” By allowing its AI to serve as a tool of state propaganda, Google has further cemented its role as an enabler of digital repression.
Google’s Support for Chinese Surveillance Technologies
Beyond direct censorship, Google has also supported Chinese technology firms that develop tools used for mass surveillance and political repression. It was revealed that one startup backed by Google, LLVision, had been providing smart glasses to Chinese police that enabled officers to identify fugitives from a database of suspects. These glasses were used at train stations to scan travelers in real-time, an eerie example of state-controlled surveillance enabled by Western technology.
While Google’s official stance has been that it no longer operates in China, its continued business relationships with firms involved in state surveillance tell a different story. The company’s decision to support incubator programs that include firms helping to enforce China’s oppressive security state is another example of how it prioritizes profits over human rights.
Google claims that it evaluates takedown requests “to determine whether or not content should be removed due to violation of local law or our content policies.” Yet, in both Russia and China, the company has demonstrated a clear willingness to bend to authoritarian pressure. While it occasionally resists takedown requests—such as refusing to remove 600 links about Xi Jinping days before Russia invaded Ukraine—these moments are exceptions rather than the rule.
Despite its claims of transparency, Google deliberately obscures the full extent of its compliance with government censorship. The company’s Transparency Report “only provides a glimpse” of the takedown requests it receives, and much of its data focuses on where it has resisted rather than where it has complied. This selective disclosure prevents the public from understanding the true scale of Google’s participation in global censorship.
Google’s cooperation with Russia and China is not about legal compliance—it is about maintaining its business interests in lucrative markets. By actively assisting in censorship, removing politically sensitive content, and even supporting companies that build surveillance tools, Google has become an indispensable partner to some of the world’s most oppressive regimes.
ACZ Editor: Google’s left leaning censors also block or de-monetize conservative political content in the U.S. They do this openly and notoriously. This is a company with little or no conscience, and little or no perspective on the power they wield when they interfere with free speech and manipulate their search tools to the detriment of mankind. And you have to consider that this may be only the tip of the iceburg.
We at ACZ are usually in favor of free enterprise and profit. But we are ashamed to have Google as an American company
