Arya News - Google stated that 181 of the 279 requests from Bangladesh sought the removal of content related to "government criticism." Other requests targeted material involving regulated goods and services, defamation, fraud, privacy and security, among other reasons.
DHAKA – Bangladesh submitted 279 requests for content removal on Google platforms between January and June 2025, according to the figures published in the company’s latest Transparency Report, which outlines the number and nature of government takedown requests worldwide.
According to the report, the 279 requests from Bangladesh covered 1,023 individual items. In the same period a year earlier, when the Awami League regime was in power, Google received 337 requests concerning 4,470 items.
Google stated that 181 of the 279 requests from Bangladesh sought the removal of content related to “government criticism”. Other requests targeted material involving regulated goods and services, defamation, fraud, privacy and security among other reasons.
The company also outlined how it responded. Google found that more than 65 percent of the items flagged from Bangladesh lacked sufficient information to act on. It took no action in 16.1 percent of cases, while 9 percent of the content had already been removed. Google removed a further portion through legal processes or by applying its own policy criteria, and reported that about 3.5 percent of the content could not be located.
In its transparency report covering the period from January to June 2025, Google said it had “received 89 requests from the Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission to remove 166 URLs from YouTube on and around the day that the Bangladesh Cybersecurity Act 2023 was repealed.”
Google added that it “did not take action on the 166 URLs on YouTube as we did not have sufficient information to proceed with the evaluation and responded to the submitter asking for further details of the claim.”
Since taking power in August 2024 after the July uprising, the interim government has replaced the Cyber Security Act with the Cyber Security Ordinance. Under section 8 of the ordinance, BTRC may request social media platforms to block content. The previous law contained similar provisions, but the interim government has added a requirement to publicly disclose information about blocked content.
The transparency report also noted that, since 2011, Google has received 4,535 removal requests from Bangladesh, covering a total of 19,419 items.
Government’s response to the Google transparency report
Following the publication of Google’s figures, the government said it had not asked any platform to remove news articles, political commentary or social media posts unless these involved misinformation, propaganda or defamatory material aimed at character assassination. Such referrals typically originate from law-enforcement agencies and the National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA) and are then forwarded to the BTRC, according to the government’s statement.
The government compared its request numbers with those under the Awami League, arguing that the current volume was significantly lower. It said the 279 requests made between January and June 2025 represented less than one-third of the 867 requests submitted between June and December 2022.
Officials attributed the recent requests largely to what they described as a rise in misinformation and propaganda campaigns targeting Bangladesh, including from foreign media. They said the banning of the Awami League under counterterrorism laws, and ongoing international legal proceedings related to the events of August 2024, had also fuelled online activity that prompted reports to Google.
The government said it had additionally submitted takedown requests related to online gambling. It added that because Google’s transparency system does not include dedicated categories for misinformation, propaganda or character assassination, many such reports appeared under “government criticism”.
The statement also highlighted international assessments, including the 2025 Freedom on the Net report by Freedom House, which found that Bangladesh recorded the largest single-country improvement in internet freedom worldwide that year, with its score rising from 40 to 45.