Australia and New Zealand Issued More Takedown Requests Than the Taliban

Social media platform TikTok received more requests to remove material from Australia and New Zealand than it did from Taliban-controlled Iraq, an analysis of the company’s published data demonstrates. In the six months from January to June 2023, the latest for which data is available, Australia sent 470 requests and New Zealand 215. In the same period, Iraq sent five. Only Russia and Bangladesh requested more items be censored, with 792 and 474 notices issued respectively. However, on a per capita basis, Australia and New Zealand still lead with  5.35 and 4.06 notices per 100,000 population, respectively. The next worst was Jordan, which last year moved to criminalise some online speech, but even that kingdom filed only 64 requests, with a per capita rate of 0.56....