An upside may be the slap in the face for pricey ‘Slapp’ lawyers who specialise in defamation threats, given that online copyright fraud has become a cheap alternative to their services.
However, this easy route to silencing public interest journalism by issuing bogus copyright complaints to online search engines, such as Google, has become a major tool for fraudsters to cover-up misdeeds.
The reason for the effectiveness of this deceptive practice is that the unregulated US tech giants invest so little in consumer relations or accountability.
The sense of impunity is such that these trillion dollar companies, which earn billions and billions of dollars of annual revenue from controlling communications across the globe, show zero interest in dispensing any of their profits into a workforce to deal with justified complaints. They see no need to invest in such requirements.
It is a matter that is finally reaching a level of global concern as the consequences have started to bite in other directions, resulting in court cases like the one now facing Facebook about its alleged ruination of children’s lives.
Rather than serve their customers or listen to public concerns these companies are ploughing vast sums into the political campaigns of legislators in the United States to make sure their host nation continues to leave them immune from the laws that govern lesser entities like mere publishers, news organisations let alone journalists, professionals or individuals of any kind.
These include the laws of defamation and also copyright. Back in 2015/16 Sarawak Report experienced a deluge of Malaysian government commissioned vilification and defamation that was promoted via anonymous websites and Facebook sites hosted by what is now Meta and also Google. Two of the major PR firms responsible have been identified as Bell Pottinger and FBC Media, both now closed thanks to this and related scandals.
However, the tech giants simply walked away from responsibility having been exempted in their capacity as mere ‘platforms”. Sarawak Report engaged Facebook senior officials pointing out that the posts defaming the site for reporting on 1MDB had been ‘boosted’ by the site to reach millions of extra readers in return for extra payments made by those PR companies.
They were therefore no longer acting as mere platforms, we argued, they were acting as publishers with far more reach than any mainstream media or book-seller. Facebook, who are almost impossible to gain proper contact details for, simply did not bother to respond Sarawak Report’s complaints, NGOs, press enquiries or lawyers’ letters.
Likewise, Google which has set up a totally AI-driven public interface operation, is leaving complainants to flounder in circular discussions with artificial bots that simply refer them to ‘FAQ’ web pages or to no-reply email addresses.
True to form, therefore, in response to US legislation that requires platforms to ‘take down’ material that infringes copyright, the company has installed an automated process that flagged up concerns from the very beginning as being blatantly open to abuse.
Specifically, the reliance on robots provides a wonderful opportunity for unscrupulous reputation laundering outfits to make bogus copyright complaints about articles their clients have not been able to silence any other way, for example via expensive legal threats.
Google’s cheapskate, staff-free solution to copyright complaints is to simply takedown the article, without even notifying the site complained about in the case of Sarawak Report. It is then left up to the victim of the fake complaint (the real owner of the copyright) to find out about the removal of their material and then to embark on a complex complaints process where the tech giant turns a deaf ear, leaving each party to sue the other.
Three years ago this happened to Sarawak Report when the now incarcerated Kuwaiti fraudster, Hammad Al Wazzan, who had been working as a proxy for Jho Low laundering stolen Malaysian funds, sought to remove an article about him from this site.
He had already tried legal threats and bogus writs through London libel law firms which Sarawak Report withstood at the expense of enormous stress and inconvenience. These hadn’t worked because the article was true and Al Wazzan, like others who have threatened this site, did not dare to actually go to court. He was later jailed by Kuwait for the crimes revealed by Sarawak Report.
In the meantime, an online site in India called Ground News issued a copyright complaint in May 2023 to Google claiming they had the rights to the article (not Sarawak Report whom Hamad had sued) even though their website simply copied the headline and then linked readers back to Sarawak Report to read the rest.
This was sufficient for Google to simply remove the Sarawak Report article from their search engine thereby achieving what Mr Wazzan had sought through his legal threats but doubtless for a fraction of the cost (libel lawyers should take note of the dire threat to their lucrative income stream). The article became largely inaccessible.
Google had failed to notify Sarawak Report. When Sarawak Report did find out there was no one to complain to. The sole solution offered by Google’s complex automated process was for Sarawak Report to submit an online ‘counter-complaint’ form which we did in August 2024.
The same automated process promises that if you submit a counter-claim and the originator of the complaint cannot prove to Google within 10 days that they have initiated legal action against the alleged offender, then the link to the article will be reinstated in the Google search engine.
Yet, although there had been no such legal action for copyright violation and SR repeated its complaints, there was no reinstatement carried out by Google throughout 2024 or 2025.
Again this year Sarawak Report re-initiated the complaints process with the same disappointing result. There was no takedown within 10 days, despite the repeat counterclaim and despite the lack of legal action or any effort by the complainant to demonstrate their claim for copyright over the article written by Sarawak Report.
In the meantime, Google had demonstrated its own impunity and exemption from such copyright laws with regard to its own AI engines by itself ignoring SR’s copyright. If you search the topic of Al Wazzan and his fear of being made a fall guy, Google’s AI extensively uses the content of the same Sarawak Report article and even acknowledges the article was authored by this site.
Despite the acknowledgement and despite Google’s own use of our copyright, the ban on accessing the Sarawak Report original link to the article continued for three years with no replies being offered to numerous complaints.
Today, the article has finally been restored to the Google search engine.
It took enormous time and effort, including emails requesting comment to Google’s press office (which were received but not answered) plus threats to marshal widespread support before action was finally taken to address a complaint that one customer service employee could have resolved in a matter of minutes.
Google has now sent an automated no-reply notice acknowledging there was no response to their automated request for evidence from the bogus complainant.
All this, simply because Google is exempted from the laws it helps to apply against others thanks to their unlimited budget to lobby legislators in the United States and the company does not wish to spend any of the billions it takes from the global community to fund jobs that provide accountability to the societies it sucks profit from.
This level of impunity and power urgently needs to be addressed in the public interest as far worse consequences beckon.
Returning online after three years – you can read the article here:
I Fear They Want To Make Me The Fall Guy! Hamad Al Wazzan – EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
