3 Requests granted 314 Total requests

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

The Wikimedia projects make up one of the world’s largest repositories of human knowledge. With that much information, someone is bound to get upset by some of the content from time to time. While the vast majority of content disputes are resolved by users themselves, in some extreme cases the Wikimedia Foundation may receive a legal demand to override our users.

The Wikimedia projects are yours, not ours. People just like you from around the world write, upload, edit, and curate all of the content. Therefore, we believe users should decide what belongs on Wikimedia projects whenever legally possible.

Below, you will find more information about the number of requests we receive, where they come from, and how they could impact free knowledge. You can also learn more about how we fight for freedom of speech through our user assistance programs in the FAQ.

This report covers requests we received between July and December, 2024. For historical data, please see our past reports.

Alteration and takedown requests from governments

37 Government requests

Requests for content alteration and takedown

Government requests37
Other277

Government requests breakdown

CountryEntityRequests
ChilePoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties
National Agency
1
1
ColombiaPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
CyprusPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
FrancePoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
GermanyState Agency1
GuineaNational Agency1
IndiaCyber Police
Federal Agency
1
1
PolandPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
RomaniaPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
Russian FederationFederal Agency
Politicians, Candidates, and Political Parties
17
1
Saudi ArabiaNational Agency1
SpainPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
TaiwanState Agency1
TurkeyNational Agency1
United States of AmericaPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties4

Requests for content alteration and takedown by project

Project AffectedRequestsGranted
English Wikipedia1131
Wikimedia Commons350
Multiple Projects240
German Wikipedia190
Russian Wikipedia150
French Wikipedia131
Spanish Wikipedia130
Not a Wikimedia Site100
Wikidata100
Italian Wikipedia70
Turkish Wikipedia70
Arabic Wikipedia50
Dutch Wikipedia40
Chinese Wikipedia30
Korean Wikipedia30
English Wiktionary20
Greek Wikipedia20
Kurdish Wikipedia20
Turkish Wikisource20
Arabic Wikinews10
Azerbaijani Wikipedia10
Bahasa Wikipedia10
Danish Wikipedia10
Finnish Wikipedia10
French Wiktionary10
Hebrew Wikipedia11
Hindi Wikipedia10
Hungarian Wikipedia10
Japanese Wikipedia10
Polish Wikipedia10
Portuguese (pt) Wikipedia10
Romanian Wikipedia10
Russian Wikinews10
Serbian Wikipedia10
Swedish Wikipedia10
Turkish Wiktionary10
Wikiversity10
Unknown70

Requests for content alteration and takedown by country

Country of OriginRequestsGranted
United States of America500
Germany260
Russian Federation210
France131
India101
Italy100
Turkey90
United Kingdom80
Spain70
Poland40
The Republic of South Korea40
Austria30
Israel31
Taiwan30
Afghanistan20
Australia20
Azerbaijan20
Belgium20
Chile20
Denmark20
Japan20
Mexico20
Netherlands20
Romania20
United Arab Emirates20
Albania10
Algeria10
Bosnia and Herzegovina10
Brazil10
Canada10
China10
Colombia10
Cyprus10
Democratic Republic of Congo10
Finland10
Greece10
Guinea10
Hungary10
Indonesia10
Iran10
Jordan10
Malta10
Morocco10
Pakistan10
Paraguay10
Peru10
Qatar10
Saudi Arabia10
Serbia10
Sri Lanka10
Switzerland10
Togolese Republic10
Ukraine10
Unknown930

Child Safety Reports

66 CyberTipline Reports Submitted 211 Subsequent Content Actions 22 Subsequent Account Actions

The global community of volunteer contributors to the Wikimedia projects, along with the Wikimedia Foundation, have developed and tailored practices to address potentially illegal content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

Robust community-led content moderation processes provide the first line of defense. While automated tools are used to support existing community processes, the bulk of this work is done manually across Wikimedia projects.

Situations involving actual or suspected Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) are escalated to the Foundation’s Trust & Safety team. This team utilizes PhotoDNA, an automated tool, to identify known CSAM images and videos, and report them to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), a nonprofit that refers cases to law enforcement agencies around the world. 

While CSAM has been found on Wikimedia projects, it is very rare. When actual or suspected CSAM is identified, we immediately lock the account(s) that upload the content and escalate the information to NCMEC’s CyberTipline, as required by law. Each report to NCMEC may involve one or more pieces of content. For our annual CyberTipline report totals from previous years, please see: 2023, 2022; 2021; 2020. As of the publication of this report, NCMEC has yet to release their 2024 annual report.

Right to Erasure

0 Requests granted 7 Total requests

The Right to Erasure, or Right to be Forgotten, is a right under the laws of various countries that allows individuals to request that certain information relating to them be delisted or removed.

When we receive a Right to Erasure request regarding project content, we first direct the requester to experienced project volunteers, who routinely handle most requests to change content on the projects. Wikimedia projects have guidelines for content about living persons, and the volunteer community can review the guidelines and work with the requester to address their concerns.

When we receive a request relating to a user account, we provide the user information on the community-driven vanishing process. See the account-related requests section below for more detail on these requests.

We believe in a Right to Remember. Everyone should have free access to relevant and neutral information of public concern; delisting and removing such content from the internet harms our collective ability to remember history and understand the world. In October 2016, we filed a petition to intervene in Google’s appeal of a French administrative order that would expand such delistings from the European Union to all global domains. In March 2020, following a ruling by the European Court of Justice limiting the geographic scope of such removals, the French court quashed the order, and the French agency behind it has adjusted its position.

* Please note that this information only reflects requests made directly to us. Wikimedia project pages continue to disappear from search engine results without any notice or request to us. We have a dedicated page where we post notices of delisted project pages that we have received from the search engines who provide such information as part of their own commitments to transparency.

Account related requests

4,695 Account deletion requests 22 Unblock requests

Many of the requests we receive ask for changes to project content, or request that we provide data about our users. However, some requests pertain to user accounts.

Account deletion

When we receive a request to delete a user’s account, we provide the user information on the community-driven vanishing process. Prior to July 2019, account deletion requests were reported in the “Right to Erasure” section. We are now reporting these requests separately in order to give users additional clarity on the types of requests we receive.

Unblock Requests

On occasion, a user who has been blocked by the community may contact the Foundation to request that we take action to reverse the block. The Foundation supports the community’s ability to issue blocks in order to protect users and the projects, and appeals to us when a user has been blocked for disruptive behavior will not result in reinstatement.

Photo credits

TR-2024-2-requests-for-content-alteration-takedown

Wikimedia Foundation

TR 2024-2-Alteration and takedown requests from governments

Wikimedia Foundation

TR 2024-2-Right to erasure

Wikimedia Foundation