From time to time, GitHub receives requests from governments to remove content that they judge to be unlawful in their local jurisdiction. When we remove content at the request of a government, we limit it to only the jurisdiction(s) where the content is illegal whenever possible. In addition, we always post the official request that led to the block in a public government takedown repository, creating a public record where people can see that a government asked GitHub to take down content.
When we receive a request, we confirm whether:
- The request came from an official government agency.
- An official sent an actual notice identifying the content.
- 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 we see possible, for example, by geoblocking content only in a local jurisdiction.