In 2012, governments around the world submitted fewer than 2,000 requests to Google asking the company to remove content from its platforms. By 2023, that number had surpassed 60,000. Over the past 15 years, Google has logged more than 551,000 individual removal requests targeting over seven million pieces of content — and the growth curve shows no sign of flattening.
Latin America is now one of the most active regions in this global censorship surge, and the latest Google Transparency Report makes the pattern unmistakable. Argentina leads the region with 1,138 requests in the first half of 2024 alone, targeting 15,549 individual items. Mexico follows with 441 requests and 1,326 flagged items. Colombia ranks third with 229 requests covering 870 pieces of content.
The Defamation Loophole
On paper, most requests cite legitimate-sounding grounds. In Colombia, half are filed under defamation laws. In Argentina, defamation accounts for 29%. In Mexico, the primary justification involves consumer protection laws. The requests come from executive agencies, courts, police, regulators, and even military bodies.
But Google’s own report sounds an alarm. The company warns that governments frequently use defamation, privacy, and copyright laws to target political speech — criticism of officials, investigative journalism, and opposition commentary. A removal request citing “defamation” may just as easily be a politician trying to erase an inconvenient story as a genuine case of reputational harm.
Colombia’s National Police vs. a Blog
The latest report highlights a specific case from Colombia. The National Police submitted a request to delete a blog containing corruption allegations against senior officers. Google reviewed the content and rejected the request on the grounds that the information was of public interest to Colombians. The blog remains online. But the attempt itself — a state security force trying to scrub corruption reporting from the internet — illustrates the broader pattern.
A Problem That Crosses the Political Spectrum
What makes Latin America‘s censorship trend striking is that it crosses the ideological divide. In Brazil, the left-leaning Supreme Court ordered X (formerly Twitter) suspended in 2024 after the platform refused to block accounts accused of spreading hate speech. Eight of eleven justices then voted to weaken the Marco Civil da Internet — the country’s landmark digital rights law — by ruling platforms could be held liable for user content even without a court order.
Supporters argue it was necessary to combat radicalisation after the January 2023 insurrection attempt. Critics call it judicial overreach that will produce mass self-censorship ahead of Brazil’s 2026 elections.
Beyond Google: The Broader Crackdown
Google is only one window into the problem. In Mexico, government requests to Meta surged 465% between 2019 and 2024, reaching over 10,000 in a single year. In Venezuela, journalists have been detained under “terrorism” charges for online reporting. In Nicaragua, 115 press freedom violations were documented in 2025. El Salvador has passed cybersecurity laws that press freedom groups say could restrict digital journalism.
Civil society groups from 17 countries told the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2024 that state actors were responsible for nearly half of all documented press freedom violations in the region — and that governments across the political spectrum use overlapping strategies: stigmatising media, deploying spyware, filing legal complaints to drain resources, and pressuring platforms to remove content.
What Google Will and Won’t Do
Google says it does not automatically comply with government requests. Each one is reviewed individually against local law and platform policies, and political speech or content of public interest is routinely protected. But the sheer volume — 60,000 requests a year globally, with Latin America among the fastest-growing regions — means the burden of defending free expression has shifted from courts and legislatures to a private company’s internal review teams.
That is perhaps the most unsettling takeaway. In an era when governments across the region are asking technology companies to decide what citizens can see and say online, the question is no longer whether censorship is happening. It is who gets to draw the line — and whether the public ever finds out.
This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Latin American news and Latin American financial news.
For more context, read Brazil’s Morning Call and the Chile IPSA report.