Google Erases Thousands of Links, Tricked by Phony Complaints
This is the expected result of increased scrutiny over Google. Whether or not to respond to claims of abuse is a tradeoff between limiting false negatives or limiting false positives. When there is an increase in the cost of false negative, both monetary and in terms of status and reputation, then Google is going to optimize to reduce false negatives at the expense of creating more false positives.This should definitely be part of the conversation when discussing regulating content on Google and other large aggregators and social media platforms. I find that the so-called "techlash" has resulted in more stringent policing of content, but also greater opportunity to abuse reporting functionality. Using copyright claims malicious has been a known practice for years now, at least between content creators (e.g. feuding YouTubers having their fans report rivals). I'm not surprised to see governments using the same tactics.