Background

GitHub sometimes receives official requests from governments to remove content. We count all such requests as “government takedown requests received,” regardless of whether they meet our criteria for removal.

Each request is reviewed to determine whether it violates GitHub’s Terms of Service. If it does, it will be actioned like a typical Terms of Service violation. If the content is not in violation of our Terms of Service but may be deemed illegal in their local jurisdiction, we require specific information in the form of a government takedown request and confirm whether:

• The request came from an official government agency;
• An official sent an actual notice identifying the content; and
• An official specified the source of illegality in that country.

If we determine the answer is “yes” to all three, we block the content in the narrowest way possible, such as geoblocking content only in a local jurisdiction, and post the official requests which led to a content takedown based on local law publicly in our government takedown repository.

The following charts display:

• The total number of government takedown requests received and their country of origin; and
• A breakdown of takedowns processed based on local law versus those processed as Terms of Service violations.