Those who write (and re-write) national constitutions naturally learn and draw from the work of other drafters. Constitute, a website that digitizes and indexes the world’s constitutions which Google Ideas launched in 2013 with the Comparative Constitutions Project, has made this process even easier.

Today marks the launch of Constitute in Arabic, which promises to make the process of constitutional drafting and analysis more accessible across the Arab world. The site now provides Arabic translations of some of the world’s most-cited constitutions, coupled with powerful analytical tools.

We’re also introducing new, powerful features across the English and Arabic versions of the site. A new “compare” functionality lets you view two constitutions side-by-side, inviting an entirely different perspective. Curious how the Japanese Constitution of 1946, drafted under U.S. occupation, compares to that of the U.S.?  View them side-by-side and compare them provision by provision (for example, on the topic of search and seizure rights) in a clean, easy-to-read layout.

Constitute also includes new options for saving and sharing content. You can now pin constitutional excerpts, comparisons and entire searches, and export the results to for easy collaborative drafting, reading or analysis. You can also share to social media, or send links to specific locations in any of the documents—for example, explore which African constitutions have provisions on gender equality. 

Finally, developers and data enthusiasts—and their machine counterparts—will be able to build upon Constitute’s underlying data through an open data portal which includes access to Constitute’s API.

On average, five new constitutions are written every year and even more are amended. Creating a document to serve as the bedrock of one’s society is a huge undertaking, which is why Google Ideas collaborated with the Comparative Constitutions Project to seed Constitute in 2013. We hope today’s additions to Constitute will help equip constitutional drafters and citizens of every country with the remarkable power of knowledge.

Posted by Brett Perlmutter, Special Projects Lead, Google Ideas

As the old saying goes, “News is something somebody wants to suppress. All the rest is advertising.” We agree: Investigative journalism is a crucial pillar of free societies. That’s why we’re holding an “Investigathon” in New York City to share and practice new ways to make investigations more powerful.

It all starts with data. With the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, we’ve built the Investigative Dashboard to help investigators trace shell company ownership around the world. At the Investigathon, 100 investigators of all stripes will spend the afternoon learning to use the Dashboard and other datasets to trace Eastern European money laundering activities. So many public records are already available to search, sometimes it’s just a question of knowing how to look.

Data only goes so far without tools. That’s why we’ve also been working with Overview Project to make it easier to sift through huge volumes of business records. The world doesn’t need more isolated platforms, so Overview Project will soon have standardized APIs to integrate directly into the Investigative Dashboard, Visual Investigative Scenarios, and beyond.

Finally, knowledge spreads through personal relationships based on trust, so we’re hoping to play a small role in strengthening the investigative journalism community on the East Coast. When we held our inaugural Investigathon in London, there was so much enthusiasm that Hacks/Hackers, Bellingcat, and OCCRP decided to run six-month series of follow-up workshops and convenings to support the work we started there.

The challenges of investigative journalists are immense, and the forces arranged against them are formidable. But if people are to have free and open access to the truths about their societies, investigators must stay one step ahead of those who would want to suppress that information. We aim to help, one step at a time.

Posted by Justin Kosslyn, Product Manager, Google Ideas

Posted by Christine Y. Chen, Senior Manager, Public Policy

Earlier today, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its “Best Practices for Responding to Cyberhate.” For two years, Google has participated in an industry working group convened by the ADL where, together with several other companies, other NGOs, and academics, we have exchanged insights and ideas on how to balance the need for responsible discourse with the principles of free expression. The best practices set forth by the ADL grew out of these conversations and we are excited to see them being shared with the wider Internet community.

In line with the practices set forth by the ADL, we work hard at Google to combat the spread of hateful content in order to maintain safe and vibrant communities on platforms like YouTube, Blogger, and Google+. We don’t allow content that promotes or condones violence or that has the primary purpose of inciting hatred on the basis of race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation or gender identity, age, nationality, or veteran status.

To make sure these communities stay vibrant, we also depend on our users to let us know when they see content that violates our policies. The Google Safety Center gives an overview of the tools that people can use to report content that violates our user policies on different products.

Here are more details about some of our content policies and how to flag violations:

• YouTube: If you see videos that run afoul of our Community Guidelines, you can report it by clicking on the flag icon below the video player. Then click on the reason — such as “hateful or abusive content” — that best fits the violation for the video, and add any additional information that will help our reviewers make a decision. We have teams around the world reviewing content flagged by users 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and they will remove any videos that violate our guidelines.

• Blogger: Our content policies describe what kinds of content are and are not allowed in blog posts. If you’re on a blog that seems problematic, click the “More” drop-down at the top of the page, then click on “Report abuse” and follow the prompts to alert us about any policy violations. If the blog owner has hidden that link, you can still report it by going to this Help Center page.  Select the type of content policy violation you’re reporting—such as “hate speech” or “harassment”—and click through to enter the URL of the blog in question.

• Google+: Our user content policy outlines how we want to ensure a positive experience for our users. If you see inappropriate content, this Help Center page explains what to do. In a Google+ post, click the arrow in the upper right of the post, then click on “Report this post” to get to a pop-up where you can select the reason—like “hateful, harrassing or bullying”—for your report. To report a Google+ comment for a policy violation, click on the gray flag next to the comment.

These reporting systems operate much like an online neighborhood watch. We ask your help in maintaining a community that provides a positive and respectful experience for everyone. The Internet has enabled anyone to become an artist, a writer, or a creator by simply using a keyboard and few clicks to reach out to the rest of the world. The release of the ADL’s best practices are a good reminder that we must all work together to keep the Internet a safe and open place to exchange information and ideas, where people can connect and engage with each other in unprecedented ways.

By Pedro Less Andrade, Director of Government Affairs & Public Policy, Latin America

U.S. export controls and sanctions can sometimes limit the products available in certain countries. But these trade restrictions are always evolving, and over time, we’ve been working to figure out how to make more tools available in sanctioned countries. In the past couple years we’ve made Chrome downloadable in Syria and Iran. We’re happy to say that Internet users in Cuba can now use Chrome too, and browse the web faster and more safely than they could before.

*Update May 5, 2015: We also recently made the Google Toolbar available for download in Cuba.

Posted by: Ross LaJeunesse, Global Head of Free Expression and International Relations, and Lewis Segall, Senior Counsel

Five years ago, when we became founding members of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), we agreed that outside assessors would review how we’re doing against GNI’s Principles on Freedom of Expression and Privacy. GNI brings together diverse stakeholders to address the risks to a free and open Internet, and conducting these assessments is an important part of the organization's mandate.

This morning, GNI released its first ever Company Assessment Report. The organization used independent assessors to look into whether the GNI’s three founding companies -- Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft -- are upholding GNI’s principles in practice. After reviewing specific cases on how Google is implementing the principles, the board found that we are compliant and working to protect freedom of expression and privacy online.

Even though it can be uncomfortable to open up to outside scrutiny, we believe the assessment is a useful model for companies, NGOs, academics, and others working together to assess how companies respond to government requests related to human rights.

Today’s report also supports the organization’s other primary task, advocacy -- ensuring that governments everywhere protect privacy and free expression online. If you’re interested in learning more about how Google responds to government demands for user information and content removal, check out our Transparency Report.

Posted by Winter Casey, Senior Policy Analyst

Thanks to the Internet, trade has never been easier. The ability to trade goods and services online has helped companies large and small to reach a global marketplace. And the web has also enabled another important cross-border transaction: the free flow of information without restriction.

This month, yet another country acknowledged the importance of having a consistent framework for cross-border flows of goods, services, and information. Mauritius is the first African country to sign a joint agreement with the U.S. that supports government transparency, open Internet networks, and cross-border information flows.

This agreement has significant implications for Mauritius’ economy. While South Africa hasn’t yet fully embraced the Internet, the sector already contributes up to 2 percent (or $7.1 billion/R59-billion) of the country’s GDP, according to a recent report by World Wide Worx. As the Internet grows, countries that are open to the free flow of goods and information will enable their businesses to trade, negotiate and advertise freely. In the long run, these solid business practices will lead to more exports and more jobs.

We encourage more governments and industries to take action so that their citizens have access to the Internet and their businesses are able to sell goods and services across borders, with the help of the Internet.

Posted by Dorothy Chou, Senior Policy Analyst

About two years ago, we launched our interactive Transparency Report. We started by disclosing data about government requests. Since then, we’ve been steadily adding new features, like graphs showing traffic patterns and disruptions to Google services from different countries. And just a couple weeks ago, we launched a new section showing the requests we get from copyright holders to remove search results.

The traffic and copyright sections of the Transparency Report are refreshed in near-real-time, but government request data is updated in six-month increments because it’s a people-driven, manual process. Today we’re releasing data showing government requests to remove blog posts or videos or hand over user information made from July to December 2011.

Unfortunately, what we’ve seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different. When we started releasing this data in 2010, we also added annotations with some of the more interesting stories behind the numbers. 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.

This is the fifth data set that we’ve released. And just like every other time before, we’ve been asked to take down political speech. 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.

For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn’t comply with either of these requests.

In addition to releasing new data today, we’re also adding a feature update which makes it easier to see in aggregate across countries how many removals we performed in response to court orders, as opposed to other types of requests from government agencies. For the six months of data we’re releasing today, we complied with an average of 65% of court orders, as opposed to 47% of more informal requests.

We’ve rounded up some additional interesting facts in the annotations section of the Transparency Report. We realize that the numbers we share can only provide a small window into what’s happening on the Web at large. But we do hope that by being transparent about these government requests, we can continue to contribute to the public debate about how government behaviors are shaping our Web.

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Posted by Neil Martin, Export Compliance Programs Manager

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog

Free expression is a fundamental human right and a core value of our company—but sometimes there are limits to where we can make our products and services available. U.S. export controls and sanctions programs, for example, prohibit us from offering certain software downloads in some countries.

The fine details of these restrictions evolve over time, and we’re always exploring how we can better offer tools for people to access and share information. For example, last year we were able to make some of our products available for download in Iran. And today we’re pleased to make Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome available for download in Syria.

As a U.S. company, we remain committed to full compliance with U.S. export controls and sanctions. We remain equally committed to continue exploring how we can help more people around the globe use technology to communicate, find and create information.

Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director of Public Policy 

Next week, 300+ Internet activists, policy makers, academics and NGO leaders from more than 30 countries will gather in Washington, D.C. to discuss the future of free speech online. The event is called Internet at Liberty 2012, and we want you to join the discussion.

The future of free expression is uncertain. According to the Open Net Initiative, more than 620 million Internet users—31% of the world’s total Internet users—live in countries where there is substantial or pervasive filtering of online content. And when free expression is in jeopardy, so are reporters; as the Committee to Protect Journalists found, nearly half of all the writers, editors, and photojournalists imprisoned around the world are online journalists.

Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes are the worst offenders, but democracies around the world are also questioning whether the Internet requires monitoring and supervision. 2012 is a crucial year. As governments are trying to draw the right lines, we are bringing the most challenging and important debates to you via Internet at Liberty 2012.

Join us on May 23 and May 24 by watching our livestream at YouTube.com/citizentube, and feel free to Tweet your questions and comments (@InternetLiberty). If you are in the DC area, consider joining us at the event live. You can register here. Space is limited, but this is a crucial issue and we want you to participate.

For more information, check out our detailed schedule of events.

Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Public Policy and Lewis Segall, Senior Ethics and Compliance Counsel

No matter who or what you are, opening up to outside scrutiny isn’t an easy or comfortable process. But that's what we agreed to do a few years ago when we helped found the Global Network Initiative (GNI), an amalgam of companies, human rights activists, socially responsible investors and academics formed in response to actions by governments that endanger free expression on the global Internet.

The objectives of GNI are both simple and incredibly complex: promote and support free expression and privacy online; subscribe to principles and follow guidelines supported by measures of transparency and accountability; and educate people and engage policymakers around the world in an effort to create a more open and free Internet.

In starting GNI, the founding companies — Google, Microsoft and Yahoo — agreed to bring in outside assessors to review how we were doing against GNI principles. Our agreement to conduct these assessments is an important part of the organization's credibility.

Now these first assessments are finished and the results have been released as part of GNI's annual report released yesterday. After reviewing them, the non-company members of GNI have told us that while we're by no means perfect, the assessments are credible and rigorous and demonstrate that companies are making progress — a concrete step in our efforts to build trust not only with our GNI partners but with all our users.

The activities of Google to promote free expression and privacy around the world extend well beyond GNI. However, being a part of this group is a compelling opportunity, since it brings together diverse stakeholders and provides a unique forum to address the risks to a free and open internet. Along with the GNI, we welcome other companies and groups to join this effort.

Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa

Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog

Earlier this week, Reporters Without Borders awarded the Netizen Prize to Syrian citizen journalists at a ceremony in Paris. The Netizen Prize is awarded annually to a blogger, online journalist or cyber-dissident who has helped to promote freedom of expression on the Internet.

For the past year, Syrian citizen journalists have continued to collect and disseminate information on the uprising wracking their country. Reporters Without Borders tonight honored these courageous activists, awarding them the 2012 Netizen Prize.

Jasmine a 27-year-old Syrian activist living in Canada, accepted the award in a ceremony in Paris on behalf of the Local Coordination Committees. She preferred to use a pseudonym to protect her family inside Syria. “The Netizen Prize proves that our voices were heard and that we succeeded in delivering the stories of millions of Syrians who are struggling on the ground to achieve what they have always dreamed - to live in freedom and dignity” she said.



This is third year in a row that Google has sponsored the Netizen Prize. Reporters Without Borders counts 200 cases of netizens arrested in 2011, up 30% over the previous year. Five were killed. This is the highest level of violence against netizens ever recorded. More than 120 are currently in jail for keeping us informed. Our own products are blocked in about 25 of 125 countries in which the company operates. “The Internet allows courageous individuals in Syria and elsewhere to tell their story to the world,” said Google France President Jean-Marc Tassetto. “The Netizen Prize and our work with Reporters Without Borders testifies to our belief that access to information will lead to greater freedom and greater social and economic development.”

Syrian journalists and bloggers are threatened and arrested by the government. International news organizations are, for the most part, kept out of the country. In their absence, the committees have become almost the only way to keep the world abreast of the violence wracking the country. They emerged spontaneously following the start of the Syrian revolution last March, bringing together human rights activists and local journalists, and now are found in most cities and towns across the country. “The Netizen Prize proves that our voices were heard," Jasmine said.

Informants on the ground send information and the committees confirm it from multiple sources. A third group translates the news into English and distributes it. News, videos and pictures are posted on the group's Facebook page, on its photo blog, and on the group’s own website. "There are millions of stories that made us cry, laugh, get mixed emotions since the uprising began,” Ola added. “We were talking to a mother of three detainees and she made us all promise each other that no matter what, we will never stop covering the events of our beloved Syria."

The award was distributed on World Day Against Cyber Censorship. In 2010, the Netizen Prize was awarded to Iranian cyberfeminists. Last year, it went to Nawaat, a group blog run by independent Tunisian bloggers. The nominees for the Netizen Award 2012 come from across the globe, ranging from Russia to Syria to Brazil and China. their geographic diversity a reflection of the growing impact of the Net.

Posted by Rogier Klimbie, Policy Manager, Amsterdam

Editor’s note: In parallel with the Big Tent event in the Hague, earlier today we partnered with the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC to hold a seminar on internet freedom at the Newseum.

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog and the European Public Policy blog)

Google has long worked hard to raise the issue of Internet freedom in Europe. So when the Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal took the initiative to host a meeting bringing together foreign ministers from more than 16 countries in the Netherlands, we wondered what could we do to support it.



Our answer was to hook up with the Dutch NGO Free Press Unlimited and host one of our Big Tent events, which aim to bring together corporations, civil society and politicians. We were delighted when both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Minister Rosenthal agreed to take part. Our Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt welcomed them to the Fokker Terminal in The Hague. “We are joined in a spirit to fight people who want to shut down free speech," he said. "It makes easy sense for a government to say: 'We don't like that...we're going to censor it'.” The conference, he said, was organized "to make the point that this is not right."

Secretary of State Clinton called on companies to protect Internet freedoms and stop selling technology that allows repressive governments to censor the net or spy on Internet users. She urged corporations to join Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others in the Global Network Initiative to resist government efforts to impose filtering or censoring requirements. She also called on governments to fight attempts to impose national controls on the net. Any such attempt would contain people in a “series of digital bubbles rather than connecting them,” she said. "It is most urgent, of course, for those around the world whose words are now censored, who are imprisoned because of what they or others have written online, who are blocked from accessing entire categories of Internet content or who are being tracked by governments seeking to keep them from connecting with one another.”

Minister Uri Rosenthal called for legislation against exports of Internet surveillance material and promised 6 million euros to help Internet activists in repressive regimes. High-powered contributions came from the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes, the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and European parliamentarian Marietje Schaake.

A panel brought together business leaders and prominent human rights activists, including the Thai webmaster Chiranuch Premchaiporn, better known as Jiew, who faces trial over comments posted on her site that were deemed insulting to the monarchy.

The Hague is our third Big Tent (see highlights here), a place where we bring together various viewpoints to discuss essential topics to the future of the Internet. The format seems to be a hit, and we plan to hold more around the world in the coming months.

Posted by Winter Casey, Senior Policy Analyst, Google

The global economy relies on the free flow of information more than ever before. Companies large and small can use the Internet to reach new markets, which contributes to economic growth, job creation, and increased trade around the world.

But as companies and individuals are transmitting more information online, some governments are seeking to impose limits on the free flow of information. More than 40 governments now block or restrict information and data available on the Internet.

Last year, we released a white paper demonstrating that governments which block the free flow of information on the Internet are also blocking trade and economic growth. For example, when companies can’t confidentially and confidently transmit the files and information that are necessary to keep their business running, their ability to export goods and services is hurt. The thesis is simple: when countries support the free flow of information, they will see more economic growth.

That’s why we joined companies like Citi, Microsoft, IBM, GE and others to endorse a new set of principles endorsing the free flow of information across borders. The principles, written under the leadership of the National Foreign Trade Council, outline several priorities for the U.S. business community which will promote transparent, fair, and secure cross-border data flows.

Individuals and businesses will benefit from a more consistent and transparent framework for the treatment of cross-border flows of goods, services and information. We look forward to continued work with governments and industry to advance the free flow of information online.

Posted by William Echikson, Google Head of Free Expression, Europe Middle East and Africa

(Cross-posted from the Google European Public Policy Blog)

At Google, we believe that it is important for the international community to step up in defense of freedom of expression. Many governments around the world are attempting to exert more control over the net. Fortunately, the United Nations is going in the other direction.

In Geneva, the UN’s Human Rights Committee recently emphasized that the protections guaranteed by one of the most important global human rights treaties apply fully in the online world: bloggers, for example, should receive the same protection as journalists.

The Committee’s action represents only the latest sign of how international organisations are stepping up to defend free expression. Earlier this year, the UN’s Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue argued in a report that restricting the flow of online information violates human rights. He has also joined with representatives from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Organisation of American States, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to issue a joint declaration.

These strong signals are generating positive momentum. After a group of UK parliamentarians leveraged the UN declarations to complain about website blocking plans, their government pulled back. The UN Human Rights Committee offers important safeguards: individuals can directly bring many human rights violations to the committee for redress. It’s up to all of us to use this power to pressure governments to live up to their obligations and safeguard online freedom of expression.

Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression Policy, Europe, Middle East and Africa

International organizations are stepping up in defense of protecting and advancing the free flow of information online.

A high-level United Nations representative has issued a clarion call promoting freedom of expression. In a report released earlier this month in Geneva, the UN’s Special Rapporteur Frank La Rue argued that restricting the flow of information via Internet blackouts violates human rights.

For the developing world, the UN’s Special Rapporteur sees access to the Internet as a crucial tool for fighting back inequality and spurring economic growth. The Special Rapporteur argues that governments should strive "to make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all." At the same time, he urges resistance to attempts by powerful governments to block Internet access.

In the developed world, the UN report opposes “three strikes” Internet laws, which are designed by governments to discourage Internet file-sharers. For instance, France and the United Kingdom are trying to employ new laws that would allow authorities to get users’ Internet unplugged permanently for illegal downloads.

We look forward to approval of the report by the United Nations General Assembly when it meets in September.

The report is already generating positive momentum in Europe and elsewhere. A group of UK Parliamentarians have put forward a motion demanding that the government review its website blocking plans.

The UN Special Rapporteur also has joined with representatives from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Organization of American States, and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to issue a ringing joint declaration in defense of free expression on the Internet. The declaration sets out several important principles, including:

• Freedom of expression applies to the Internet, as it does to all means of communication. Any restrictions are acceptable only in the rarest of occasions when prescribed by law and if in compliance with international standards.
• Internet service providers that provide the platform for free expression cannot be held liable for illegal or harmful content generated by third parties.
• Mandatory blocking of websites or IP addresses represents an extreme measure, analogous to the prohibition of a newspaper, radio, or television station.
• The “single publication rule” should be respected. It holds that damages can be recovered only once for any single piece of content.

Mr. La Rue toured Europe recently to build support for his report. When he visited The Hague, the Dutch government offered strong support and announced plans to host a global Ministerial Conference on online Freedom of Expression in the Netherlands in the fall. So watch this space for updates on the battle to keep the Internet open for a free and open exchange of ideas and opinions.

Posted by Steve Grove, YouTube News and Politics

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)

We live in a world that feels smaller every day. As we become accustomed to nearly ubiquitous coverage of the news and events unfolding around the world, it’s easy to forget the price that is sometimes paid to obtain quality, accurate reporting on important stories—particularly in areas of conflict or in cases of government repression of the media. With this in mind, today, the Newseum in Washington, D.C., Google and YouTube are together launching the Journalists Memorial channel on YouTube to remember the journalists who have died in the last year while reporting news around the world.

Their stories are incredible: heading into a street battle with no weapon other than your camera; talking about politics over the radio, only to be beaten to death with iron bars by a group of thugs on the way to work. The risks and sacrifices that many have made in order to provide us with accurate information is remarkable. On the Journalists Memorial channel you can watch a collection of videos representing these journalists’ lives and their work.



This channel will become a digital version of the Newseum’s Journalists Memorial, which is re-dedicated annually to honor journalists worldwide who have died during the preceding year. This year, 77 names are being added to the list of the more than 2,000 journalists who have been recognized for their sacrifices since 1837. At today’s rededication ceremony, Krishna Bharat, the founder and head of Google News, will be delivering the keynote address, which the Newseum will post to the new YouTube channel later today.

In tribute to those who are being honored at today’s ceremony, we would like your help finding videos that profile or represent the work of all journalists who have risked or lost their lives doing the important work they do. We invite you to go to the Journalists Memorial channel and submit videos you think deserve recognition to the Moderator platform on the channel. The Newseum will be featuring additional submissions there.

Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Public Policy

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted more than sixty years ago, but its words still ring true today – almost as though they were crafted with the Internet in mind:

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” (Article 19)

Today is World Press Freedom Day 2011 – an event marking the central role that free and independent media play in building and maintaining democratic movements and nations.

This year’s theme is digital media – a particularly appropriate focus in a year that has seen the Internet play a crucial role in helping people to organize against dictators in the Middle East and North Africa. A free and open Internet is just one tool, but it has proved itself to be truly powerful over the past few months.

World Press Freedom Day is a date to recognize those who strive to advance the cause of freedom of expression and keep the flow of information open and unfettered. That includes efforts by groups that aim to investigate and expose Internet filtering and surveillance practices, as well as those who work to protect journalists and measure press freedom around the world.

For our part, Google is committed to providing the information that citizens around the globe need to understand the world and participate in the governing of their societies. We’re happy to join the UN Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy, UNESCO and all the other partners to mark today’s occasion.

Posted by Matt Braithwaite, Transparency Engineering Team Lead

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)

When we introduced the Transparency Report last year, we promised to keep looking for new and useful ways to display data about traffic to our services. In response to your requests, today we’re adding graphs for each region that show traffic patterns for all products in aggregate. These graphs will show data with a five-minute delay.

In this graph, for example, you’ll see that all of our services in Egypt were down from January 27 to February 1:

Starting today, you won’t have to sift through every single product graph to figure out if one or more services are inaccessible. You’ll get a snapshot up front. We’ve also added annotations for historical anomalies that we’ve seen in the traffic to our services. To see the graph for each cited incident, just click on the corresponding link.

As the Transparency Engineering team lead, part of my job is to ensure that we find, uncover and visualize datasets within Google that can help inform research and analysis on important topics. We believe that providing the facts can spark useful debate about the scope and authority of policy decisions around the globe.

We’ll continue to iterate, and we hope that the Report will help shed light on the accessibility and patterns of traffic to our services around the world.

Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa

(Cross-posted from the Google European Public Policy Blog.)

Last week we blogged about the annual 2011 Reporters Without Borders Netizen Prize, which recognizes bloggers or Internet activists who defend freedom of expression on the Net. This year’s prize went to Nawaat, a group of Tunisian bloggers.

The independent jury of press specialists agreed that Nawaat’s online reporting played a significant part in helping to depose Tunisia’s longtime dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. It chose Nawaat as the winner from a strong field of finalists from Bahrain, Belarus, Thailand, China and Vietnam.

Created in 2004, Nawaat.org is an independent collective blog operated by Tunisian bloggers as a platform for all “committed citizens.” The bloggers played a crucial role in covering the social and political unrest in Tunisia that began on December 17. Nawaat recently created a special page for the WikiLeaks revelations about Tunisia, and another one about the recent events in Sidi Bouzid, which were not covered in the traditional media. The site also warns Internet users about the dangers of being identified online and offers advice about circumventing censorship.

Photo © Mat Beaudet

Pictured above from left to right are: Jean-François Julliard, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders; Former French Foreign Minister and founder of Doctors Without Borders, Bernard Kouchner; and Nawaat co-founder Riadh Guerfali, accepting the awards at a ceremony in Paris’ Salon des Mirroirs.

“We are deeply honored by this prize. It will help to strengthen the citizen journalism that we have been practicing for years at Nawaat, despite all the risks involved,” Guerfali said in his acceptance speech. “This award is not only a tribute to Nawaat but to all our fellow journalists who often risk their lives to keep working in countries where freedom of expression is suppressed.”

Google sponsors the annual Netizen prize. First awarded in 2010, it forms part of our commitment to support the free flow of information and free expression online. Last year, Iranian women’s rights activists Change for Equality became the first recipient.

Update: Here's a video of Google's Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf saluting the 2011 Netizen Award winners –

Posted by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering

Peter Steiner’s iconic “on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” cartoon may have been drawn in jest--but his point was deadly serious, as recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have shown. In reality, as the web has developed--with users anywhere able to post a blog, share photos with friends and family or “broadcast” events they witness online--the issue of identity has become increasingly important.

So, we’ve been thinking about the different ways people choose to identify themselves (or not) when they’re using Google--in particular how identification can be helpful or even necessary for certain services, while optional or unnecessary for others. Attribution can be very important, but pseudonyms and anonymity are also an established part of many cultures -- for good reason.

When it comes to Google services, we support three types of use: unidentified, pseudonymous and identified. And each mode has its own particular user benefits.

Unidentified. Sometimes you want to use the web without having your online activity tied to your identity, or even a pseudonym—for example, when you’re researching a medical condition or searching for that perfect gift for a special someone. When you’re not logged into your Google Account (or if you never signed up for one), that’s how you’ll be using our services. While we need to keep information like IP addresses and cookies to provide the service, we don’t link that information to an individual account when you are logged out.

Pseudonymous. Using a pseudonym has been one of the great benefits of the Internet, because it has enabled people to express themselves freely—they may be in physical danger, looking for help, or have a condition they don’t want people to know about. People in these circumstances may need a consistent identity, but one that is not linked to their offline self. You can use pseudonyms to upload videos in YouTube or post to Blogger.

Identified. There are many times you want to share information with people and have them know who you really are. Some products such as Google Checkout rely on this type of identity assurance and require that you identify yourself to use the service. There may be other times when it’s more desirable to be identified than not, for example if you want to be part of a community action project you may ask, “How do I know these other people I see online really are community members?”

Equally as important as giving users the freedom to be who they want to be is ensuring they know exactly what mode they’re in when using Google’s services. So recently we updated the top navigation bar on many of our Google services to make this even clearer. In the upper right hand corner of these Google pages, you will see an indicator of which account, if any, you are signed into.

We’re also looking at other ways to make this more transparent for users. While some of our products will be better suited to just one or two of those modes, depending on what they’re designed to do, we believe all three modes have a home at Google.