Egyptian Blogger Silenced by YouTube, Yahoo! 188
An anonymous reader writes "An Egyptian human rights activist has been muzzled after YouTube and Yahoo! shut down his accounts. Award-winning blogger Wael Abbas regularly writes and posts video about police brutality, torture and sexual harassment in Egypt. One of the videos — of an Egyptian bus driver being brutalized by an officer — was used as evidence to convict two members of the police force. That's a rare occurrence in a country where human-rights groups say torture is rampant. YouTube said the decision to remove Abbas' videos had nothing to do with the Egyptian government, but was rather an internal decision."
Re:Internal decision... (Score:4, Informative)
The article states that videos with gratuitous or graphic violence is against YouTube's TOS and that is why the account was suspended.
Re:tags (Score:2, Informative)
Next up: US Blogger Silenced by US Corp. (Score:5, Informative)
For all those comments saying this has to do with how bad the situation is in Egypt, it does not.
This is indicative of the situation in the US where these corporations exist.
Historical record shows that corporate entities have big financial incentives to aid and abet the suppression of human rights in democratic societies that are closing down and turning into dictatorship states.
Naomi Wolf, an award winning feminist writer who used to be part of the Clinton clique has recently written a book [amazon.com] about this. For those who would like to check it out there is an youtube speech [youtube.com] she gave recently detailing the main concept of her recent research.
The U.S. is in a downward spiral and predictions can be made for what comes next. The attacks are first directed at the margins of society, then the lines get blurred and everyone becomes fair game. Within a year you will hear this happen to an American blogger and many people will defend the action. Journalists are already being harassed, bloggers will come soon after.
It reminds me of a poem I once heard:
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
Martin Niemöller [wikipedia.org] (1892-1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
TFA doesn't mention Yahoo (Score:1, Informative)
Yahoo!? (Score:1, Informative)
Next up: A lesson on the constitution (Score:2, Informative)
Note the first word. It says Congress, not Youtube. You have no rights when playing on someone else's property. If you don't like playing by someone else's rules, run your blog from your own server, or somewhere else.
P.S. Reductio ad Hitlerum doesn't help your argument.
Re:Silenced? Censorship? (Score:2, Informative)
Your Address
Date of writing
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
To whom it may concern:
I have been a faithful user of Google for several years now. I'm proud to support a company that offers great products (search, email, calendars, photo management, videos, etc.) while remaining consumer friendly. I especially appreciate Google's efforts to "not be evil" when asked by the U.S. Government to hand over searches performed by Google's users.
It is for these reasons that I daily attempt to switch people from less consumer friendly web services like Yahoo or AOL. I warn friends and family that Yahoo has given information to the Chinese government that was used to imprison at least three Chinese journalists (Shi Tao, Li Zhi, and Jiang Lijun), while AOL released to the public every search term made on their site as well as a personally identifiable user number. Thank you, Google, for standing up for free speech and user rights.
I am, however, quite disappointed in Google today. This morning, when I logged in to my Google Homepage, I was greeted by a story on Slashdot discussing the recent YouTube banning of Egyptian blogger and free speech/anti-torture activist Wael Abbas. I realize that Abbas's videos demonstrating police brutality and torture may have been somewhat graphic and against YouTube's Terms of Service, but American users regularly post videos of people being TASERed or getting in fights. If something is indeed graphic, it is normally tagged as "mature" and still allowed to remain on YouTube.
So I ask you, Google, why are you suddenly censoring videos that were used to fight police brutality? What happened to your motto "Don't Be Evil"? Why do you stand up for the rights of Americans, yet censor free speech in other countries?
Thank you for your time. I eagerly await your response (email is fine).
(Your Name)
(Your Email)
Links to information discussed in this letter:
http://www.booyahoo.com/ [booyahoo.com]
http://tinyurl.com/28amqh [tinyurl.com]
http://tinyurl.com/2cpxvv [tinyurl.com]
http://tinyurl.com/ytk2lc [tinyurl.com]
(the above tinyurl's redirect to Google search pages)
Re:Internal decision... (Score:1, Informative)
That is why videos like http://youtube.com/watch?v=rz7UNxnOI3M [youtube.com] and http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ru0bxSqWMdo [youtube.com] and http://youtube.com/watch?v=7UeB0euRQ3k [youtube.com] are not on youtube either? Please, give me a fucking break. How about the video of dead monks in the river during Velvet uprising? You are so full of shit, you and people who modded you up.
Talking about double standard.
The Yahoo! Connection (Score:2, Informative)
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/7184 [foreignpolicy.com]
Yahoo! claimed that he was using his email accounts for spamming, so they shut him down.