Requests for content alteration and takedown

1 Requests granted 402 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 January and June, 2025. For historical data, please see our past reports.

Alteration and takedown requests from governments

71 Government requests

Requests for content alteration and takedown

Government requests71
Other331

Government requests breakdown

CountryEntityRequests
BrazilPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
EstoniaPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
GermanyPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
GuineaCyber Police1
Hong KongCyber Police1
IndiaCity Police
Cyber Police
Federal Agency
Politicians, Candidates, and Political Parties
1
5
3
2
IranPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
ItalyPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
LibyaPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
MauritiusPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
MoroccoPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
NigeriaPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
PakistanFederal Agency1
Russian FederationCity Court
Federal Agency
2
39
Saudi ArabiaAdministrative Agency1
SpainPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties2
TaiwanNational Agency1
United KingdomPoliticians, Candidates, and Political Parties1
United States of AmericaAdministrative Agency
Politicians, Candidates, and Political Parties
1
1

Requests for content alteration and takedown by project

Project AffectedRequestsGranted
English Wikipedia1250
Wikimedia Commons430
Russian Wikipedia330
Multiple Projects300
German Wikipedia260
French Wikipedia201
Wikidata190
Not a Wikimedia Site140
Spanish Wikipedia120
Italian Wikipedia80
Turkish Wikipedia70
Chinese Wikipedia50
Arabic Wikipedia40
Portuguese Wikipedia40
Russian Wikinews40
Czech Wikipedia30
Dutch Wikipedia30
Japanese Wikipedia30
Catalan Wikipedia20
Farsi Wikipedia20
Hindi Wikipedia20
Hungarian Wikipedia20
Korean Wikipedia20
Vietnamese Wikipedia20
Albanian Wikipedia10
Bahasa Wikipedia10
Bengali Wikipedia10
Croatian Wikipedia10
Danish Wikipedia10
English Wiktionary10
Estonian Wikipedia10
Finnish Wikipedia10
French Wikiversity10
French Wiktionary10
Greek Wikipedia10
Kinyarwanda Wikipedia10
Malay Wikipedia10
Norwegian Wikipedia10
Polish Wikipedia10
Romanian Wikipedia10
Slovak Wikipedia10
Tamil Wikipedia10
Telugu Wikipedia10
Ukrainian Wikipedia10
Unknown70

Requests for content alteration and takedown by country

Country of OriginRequestsGranted
United States of America440
Russian Federation420
Germany360
India260
France221
United Kingdom160
Italy110
Spain110
Turkey90
Canada60
Czech Republic50
Brazil40
Japan40
Australia30
Hong Kong30
Netherlands30
Switzerland30
Taiwan30
The Republic of South Korea30
Austria20
China20
Denmark20
Finland20
Hungary20
Pakistan20
Romania20
Albania10
Argentina10
Bangladesh10
Belgium10
Colombia10
Cyprus10
Democratic Republic of Congo10
Egypt10
Estonia10
Greece10
Guinea10
Indonesia10
Iran10
Ireland10
Israel10
Kuwait10
Libya10
Luxembourg10
Malaysia10
Mauritius10
Morocco10
New Zealand10
Nigeria10
Poland10
Saudi Arabia10
Singapore10
Slovakia10
South Africa10
Sri Lanka10
Sweden10
Trinidad and Tobago10
Uganda10
Ukraine10
Vietnam10
Unknown1000

Child Safety Reports

35 CyberTipline Reports Submitted 78 Subsequent Content Actions 26 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: 2024, 2023, 2022; 2021; 2020.

Right to Erasure

0 Requests granted 8 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

1,808 Account deletion requests 20 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.