YouTube Refuses To Remove Terrorist Videos

hhavensteincw writes "YouTube has declined a request from Sen. Joe Lieberman remove videos from terrorist organizations. Lieberman said that the videos made by groups like Al-Qaeda show assassinations, attacks on US soldiers leading to injuries and death, and weapons training, 'incendiary' speeches, and other material intended to 'encourage violence against the West.' YouTube said that while it removed some of the videos highlighted by the Senator, most were allowed to stay because they did not violate YouTube's community guidelines. YouTube went on to note that they are strong supporters of free speech."

The guidelines

[Anonymous Coward]

Directly from youtube's guidelines:

# Don't post videos showing bad stuff like animal abuse, drug abuse, or bomb making.
# Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don't post it.
# YouTube is not a shock site. Don't post gross-out videos of accidents, dead bodies and similar things.

http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines

Free speech hypocrites

Re:Hypocritical?

[TheSpoom]

The DMCA (or specifically, DMCA Title II, OCILLA [wikipedia.org]) legally requires them to take down the material when a copyright claim is put forward, such as the ones the Church of Scientology / RTC sends, in order to avoid any legal liability due to the safe harbor provisions in the law. The person who then posted the video can send a counter-notice to YouTube to get them to put the video back up; it's then a matter for the courts to decide (and if the person claiming infringement does go to the courts, the material stays down until they have ruled on the matter).

IANAL, this is not legal advice, this is just how I understand it. You can't blame YouTube for wanting to keep their service provider safe harbor limited liability; otherwise, they'd be sued out of existence every time someone posted a music video.

Re:you fool

[_KiTA_]

it doesnt happen with 'coup'. it happens with 'boarding schools' which take in children of ages 7 to 18. they run these 'charities' for children who cant afford a good education. they brainwash kids there. also they tell their supporters to multiply like madmen. results are phenomenonal.

Religious boarding schools... Huh. You mean, something like this? [jesuscampthemovie.com]

You're right, Theists are SCARY.

Re:this won't go down well (karma sacrifice)

[SquierStrat]

The difference: the Irish preferred not to die for their cause. The Islamic Fascists are supranational and would relish to die for theirs. They want to rule the world (literally) and force their religion on everyone. They have no dreams of independence. They do speak. And when they do, they frequently remind us that they are just cleansing the immoral from the earth and asking Americans (and other westerners) to repent and turn to Islam. Otherwise they simply want to kill us all or die trying. So they state three acceptable outcomes: we all become muslim; they kill all non-muslims; all of them die.

It's not a political battle - it's a holy war. The difference is that it isn't between Christianity and Islam (or Hindu and Islam) it's between secular government and Islam. Fortunately there is an identifiable enemy: pre-dominantly men who belief in a twisted version of Islam.

Bottom line: You can't compare this to the dispute between the British and the IRA.

Re:Tarrists!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States

Re:Tarrists!

[WindowlessView]

There isn't a corporation in the US that's a match against the power of the federal government.

True but they are getting closer. [corporations.org]

Re:Propoganda or not - Let the truth be viewed

[DaHat]

Just to name a few off the top of my search results:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020445.php [jihadwatch.org]
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22835_Jawa_Report_Video_Censored_by_YouTube&only [littlegreenfootballs.com]
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/10/06/youtube-goes-dhimmi-part-two/ [hotair.com]

Re:Propoganda or not - Let the truth be viewed

[denton420]

That's a very good point actually. While there's no question that the production of child porn should be illegal (afterall a child had to be abused in the making of it)

Unfortunately, this will not be entirely true in the near future.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/16/1836246 [slashdot.org]

Soon you will be a felon for creating child porn in which NO children were actually abused.

Hell, why stop there, lets just make ANY picture that we don't agree with on a moral basis ILLEGAL and have a hefty jail sentence for it. I was thinking something along the lines of a law against putting government officials in an unfavorable light, what do you guys think?

Yes, welcome to the end of the world, enjoy your stay and make sure to thank the children as well as your local representative.

Re:Tarrists!

[flyingsquid]

Actually, it's already been proposed, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm_mark [wikipedia.org], and it's even got a name, the "snark", which I assume refers to "snarky" or perhaps is a conglomeration of "sarcasm" and "mark".

ALLEGED terrorist videos

[coyote-san]

The progressive sites I read have been making a big point that these were ALLEGED terrorist videos. A few clearly were, were also violations of the guidelines, and were removed.

The rest? Not so clear, and google did the right thing in punting.

The alternative is to reduce the internet to the equivalence of the "no fly list". You want to post something? Sorry, but someone in the government says that it violates some rules. Can't tell you what those rules are -- you would just work around them. Can't give you a way to appeal the decision. Can't even let you bitch about the decision -- that in itself would be supporting terrorism. Donchaknow. But don't worry, we can trust the government.

Re:Tarrists!

[D66]

You cited a poor example as there is a Chasm of difference between funding schools for suicide bombers, and providing a public forum where film of attacks are posted.

This has far less to do with actual criminal trial and boils down to one Senator asking one company to express some good taste

If anything, this is blown a bit out of proportion

Re:Good

[ejecta]

Well, before being renamed, it was actually Land of Canaan inhabited by the Canaanites - the Israelites rolled down circa 1500BC with the breakup of the Egyptian empire :)

Re:Priorities.....

[joelwyland]

How about videos of Marines killing people? There are plenty of those on YouTube as well. Do you want those taken down?

Re:Tarrists!

[the_womble]

Comparing GDP (a measure of value added) to sales makes no sense.

To compare like with like you need to compare GDP to value added or profit.

The problem with the power corporations have is not how much any one corporation controls directly. It is:

1) The power a corporation has within its own industry (e.g. MS)
2) The political influence they can buy

Re:Tarrists!

[Coppit]

That's an awesome idea~

I hate to be pedantic, but accepted usage of the tilde ("~") as punctuation is to place it after the period (".").~ Indeed, all known usages of the tilde as punctuation to date have been this way.~ Although this has not yet been formalized in the Chicago manual of style, your mis-use of the mark will only delay its wide-spread acceptance.~

Regards,
A concerned citizen

Re:Free Speech vs Right to Life

[jedidiah]

Ah No...

Things like the suspension of Habeus Corpus have in the past been limited to REAL WARS.

That is, there is a very easy way to determine when all of the trampling
on rights is no longer necessary. An armistice or a peace treaty is signed.
War with no real definition means war without any good means to declare an
ending and the "sacrifices" become permanent.

Even in "genuine wars" the notion that civil liberties in general should
be trampled has been considered repugnant.

People with no clue about the Civil War, World War II or Vietnam are all
making unsubstantiated bold and BS claims about what is or isn't a
necessary or useful sacrifice to make in order to prosecure a war.