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."

Tarrists!

Google is clearly acting in support of terrorism and is therefore itself a terrorist organization. We need to drop some injunction on that.

Re:Tarrists!

Wow. I guess slashdotters don't appreciate sarcasm today. Let's see if I can be more straightforward:

By hosting videos from terrorist organizations, YouTube could be construed as providing communication for terrorists, which constitutes material support for terrorists. In some previous cases of alleged material support for terrorism, the government has acted aggressively (example) [wikipedia.org]. Of course this case will be handled differently, because Google is a well known organization commonly in the public eye, but I suspect the US would be much more aggressive about this "request" if it were a lesser known company. I think applying the law evenly to all potential offenders would expose the problems with current laws.

Propoganda or not - Let the truth be viewed

Let us decide what we can watch. Don't censor anything, please?

Hypocritical?

They seem to have no problem removing videos related to Scientology.

Re:Hypocritical?

Are you surprised? They're the one group more messed up than the terrorist organizations.

Re:Hypocritical?

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.

The guidelines

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:The guidelines

perhaps the removed videos were the ones with beheadings and the ones that are still there are the ones with i dunno terrorist training camps & osama bin laden speeches & other anti-american propaganda.

kinda hard to tell without a list of them, but if this is the case, i dont see a problem at all.

Re:The guidelines

perhaps the removed videos were the ones with beheadings and the ones that are still there are the ones with i dunno terrorist training camps & osama bin laden speeches & other Anti-American propaganda.

I think the ones with the beheadings and stonings and abuse of women are the most important to keep. They show the true face of Militant Islam and Sharia Law. It's easy to make a convincing Anti-American propaganda video, we make lots of mistakes and some of them are quite shameful (Gitmo and Katrina come to mind) but let not forget to closely examine what our critics are proposing to replace our imperfect America with.

Someone needs to pull Lieberman aside explain to him meaning of "the only thing you have to fear is fear itself." Fight lies and propaganda with truth and transparency, not secrets and censorship.

refuses? yet removed (some)?

Title: YouTube Refuses To Remove Terrorist Videos
Summary: YouTube [...] removed some of the videos

Did the same person actually write both, or what?
New Title: YouTube Refuses To Remove Some Terrorist Videos

or...

New Title: YouTube Refuses To Remove Most Terrorist Videos

Then again, wth is a "terrorist video"? A video with terrorists in it? A video with a religious leader spouting extremist ideas in it? What?

Anyway... the ones that -were- removed where apparently removed for violating YouTube's own community 'rules';
"Senator Lieberman's staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube's Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, we examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech. Most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines." - http://www.axcessnews.com/index.php/articles/show/id/16037 [axcessnews.com]

Sounds 'sane' enough (not too sure about the hate speech thing, but if YouTube comments are any indication, I wouldn't want to see the insult-and-flamefest that youtube would become if every 13-year old could spout their hatred for another YouTube user in a video.

That's the world we live in

You can't post a video with two people having consentual sex. Yet you can post videos showing violence, inciting hatred and bragging about terrorist attacks.

Personally, I think that if we allow terrorist videos, then at the very least pr0n should be allowed, too. :-)

Re:That's the world we live in

Every time you masturbate God kills a kitten

But what does God do when I kill a kitten?

political stunt

This smells like a stunt. Lieberman was probably expecting them to refuse him entirely, and use that to incite outrage to further his agenda. It looks like Youtube saw through it, and took the responsible course of action by fairly applying their community standards. Now Lieberman will have to openly admit that he wants to limit free speech if he wants to push this further, because he can't claim that they're unfairly supporting one viewpoint by keeping the majority of the content which did not violate the standards.

Hypocritical Indeed

Google didn't seem to have much support for freedom of speech when they assisted the government of India in locating a man who posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, as reported yesterday on Slashdot. [slashdot.org] Strong supporters of freedom of speech indeed - right up until the protection of a user's right to freedom of speech threatens to strain Google's political relationships with distant countries where labor and data center construction are cheap.

Here's another perspective if you care to read it:

I spent a year in Iraq as a US soldier.

I found the insurgent videos to be, well lacking in their musical choice. However, they provided an excellent view into the operations of the insurgents. We sometimes would watch them just to get a better idea about them.

And the Uhm Kfar (spelling?) video did have some hella tight beats.

You know...once this whole world-struggle for ideologies (this really isn't about Iraq, as far as the insurgents see it) is over, we are gonna sit down, have some beers, and play our videos together, and laugh about the old times.

They are going to post their videos on some site... we certainly post ours. Why shouldn't a US company get the ad revenue?

Easy.

The US government should patent terrorism and then Liberman could sue YouTube for copyright infringement. Google would take down the videos immediately.

Interesting

I hadn't even noticed that Hamas had so many videos on youtube.
Those interested should check out http://youtube.com/watch?v=U8Nj-QKQkCo [youtube.com] and related videos.

Also an interesting movie I watched recently was "suicide killers". It contains many interviews with suicide bombers right before they kill themselves, and many interviews with failed suicide bombers in Israeli prisons.

http://www.amazon.com/Suicide-Killers-Pierre-Rehov/dp/B000NVHWIE [amazon.com]
http://www.mininova.org/tor/635799 [mininova.org]

Maybe I am just strange, but I find it absolutely fascinating how a group of people can have such a strong hatred of Israel. It's a really fucked up situation for both sides, but I think it is very important for both sides to be heard.

Re:Good

Kudos for calling a Jew a Nazi.

Not that I disagree. ;-)

Re:Good

And if we don't let them make these videos, then it's moot because we've already lost

Think that they're wrong? Say something, don't prevent them from saying something

Re:Good

This is America, not France/*insertshittyeuropeancountryhere* where the muslims are allowed to run free protesting all the values of western civilization (freedom) and calling for the beheading and execution of anyone who even talks negatively about islam, let alone draws a cartoon.

Nah, Islam's not allowed to do that, instead we just have people saying 9/11 occurred because we haven't killed / locked up all the homosexuals, atheists, and Jews. And these people are not only allowed on TV after having said this, are actually well respected members of the national community.

Re:Good

Yeah, damn them Europeans letting everyone in on this freedom of speech thing.

Re:Good

As a European (British) I would like to point out there is no chance of most of Europe turning into a muslim state. Most of us over here supported the authors of those comics, as did our governments. There were lots of loony Muslims out campaigning for some stupid fatwa or something, but who cares. That is the joy of free speech, getting to ignore pathetic hatemongering individuals who don't understand that without it they would be unable to open their mouths at all.

If we do anything else in regards to stopping religious loonies being able to practice, march or gather in public places we begin curtailing the freedoms that we hold so dear to begin with and are no better than them. Anyway, watching them whine and burn effegies of some guy who only drew a cartoon gives alot of us even more reason to poke fun at some peoples serious lack of perspective.

The following quote is one I have always identified with in matters such as these:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Re:I'm sorry...

A record of an event is not the illegal event -- why don't you ban the fucking news while you're at it?

> Can I kill my annoying neighbors now and claim free speech protection?

Not unless you're a rich Saudi, in which case Bush will be pleased to assist.

Re:Free Speech vs Right to Life

...is it too much to ask that we take away the free speech of people...

Yes.

Re:Bravo! Why the hell should YouTube fold?

Hell, every single time the US apparatus kills a non-merkun, that is animosity generated SOMEwhere, and it puts a fucking bulls eye on MY back. Going to wrong place, or just having visible a US passport not only increases the risk of being accosted, grabbed, or killed (not to mention having prices jacked up at the sound of my voice or sight of my gait or clothing or body language) makes me a target, NOT solely because of the passport but for being called a 'merkun.

A life is a life, at the individual level. It's only different for those who have bigger guns, pussies for a population, and laws to jail or contain those who speak out.

LET ME DECIDE what I'll watch. So far, to my recollection, i have YET to bother watching the beheading of any nationality. Not out of respect for the dead, but just because of personal preference to not make it a thing to do or repeat.

If the USA doesn't want to see 'merkuns coming home in body bags nor be executed/murdered/butchered, then all it has to do is stop bombing, stop killing, and stop strong-arming and stop acting as if people who have grievances against the US don't have to right to get some rep. The more repugnant the public finds the ACT of murder (as opposed to recoiling over the mere existence of a video that depicts the murder) then maybe the more backbone the 'merkun people will grow out of concern for it's IMAGE.

Right now, we do NOT deserve that much respect. Plain fuckin' period. Trinkets, bravado, money, power, guns, steel, rockets, and freedom for me don't mean SHIT when some asshole decides to kill in my name, steal in my name, plunder in my name, and risk my well being to keep goods rolling and oil flowing when MOST of the bullshit is something i OUGHT not be buying in the first place, or certainly could buy less of it.

There. I speak for myself, even if others agree. Sometimes, I'll assert my opinion has a moral priority over others', and with or without agreement, i will stand my ground. Don't FUCKING KILL in MY name and expect me to ignore it or forgive it or play like every single one of the attacked was wrong or was a threat to ME or even "the system". Otherwise, the populace deserves to be wiped out by plague, pestilence, famine, nature, or even any pot-shot-taking ETs that happen to notice our repugnant leaders and, worse, our general total ineffectiveness to reign in the corrupt.

Congress and the Senate need to remember that when you tell someone NOT to see a movie, they go see it. Assigning an R-Rating to a movie or film just increases viewership. Leaving it UNRATED might do even more to increase viewership.