Should YouTube take down terrorist videos and censor al-Qaida?
 

this is an interesting issue. i hope you take the time to read below to form an opinion.

quote from site:

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., called Monday for YouTube to take down al-Qaida videos that users had posted, but the site said most of the videos his office had flagged did not contain material that violated their guidelines and rejected his request that they act to remove all material from U.S. designated terror groups.

In a letter to Eric Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive officer of Google Inc., which owns YouTube, Lieberman urged the popular video-sharing service to enforce its own "community guidelines" against "graphic or gratuitous violence" and said the company should change its rules "to address violent extremist material."

In the letter, released to the media and dated Monday, Lieberman wrote that removing videos produced by al-Qaida and other extremist groups should be straightforward, because "so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance."

In a blog posting, YouTube said it welcomed the dialogue with Lieberman but noted that "most of the videos" his office had drawn to their attention "did not contain violent or hate speech content" and had therefore not been removed from the site "because they do not violate our Community Guidelines."

YouTube, which hosts millions of videos posted every day by its user-community, also rejected the idea that it should pre-screen content for videos produced by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

[continued on site]
http://www.upi.com/International_Sec...al-qaida/6060/

fuck you cum guzzlin gutter slut. CYA!

Im cool with the choice to let them play by the rules.

Oh I also would not want to be google right now either. Something says they just stepped in big pile of freedom of speech doo doo.

No. Youtube is the new media, lets not encourage them to start on a bad footing with censorship. Can't say I am surprised this is coming from Lieberman, if he had his way the only extremists that would be allowed on the site would be Zionists. But of course, they aren't extremists blah blah.

Normally, I would support free speech and at the least put a warning (like they do for racy/adult videos), but the terrorists are pushing these videos to cause fear amongst people and I'd rather discourage that and take down the videos. Its hard to pick and choose like this, but this is one of those things I'd rather take down than support free speech.
WG

i have seen lots of evangelical videos which are pushed to cause fear amongst people. can you see where this is going?

You make me sad.

They took down the videos of the girls beating up someone in a house but terrorist shit can stay? hmmmmm

Did you read full article?

ehh, reading is overrated.
he is probably just waiting for the video of it on youtube.

Sorry that would be auto censored because it mentions Al Qaida.

youtube does not scan audio.

i am all shaken up over my other thread mistake. i am here trying to provide interesting discussions before bed and wham! i dish out iranian propaganda. :error

terrorist traffic convert to sales

what??? :warning

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

Censorship sucks.

Which is why I said ordinarily I would support free speech. Its a really tough call, thankfully I'm not in Google's shoes, lol.
WG

the notion of "free speech" is going to increasingly fade in coming years. the founding fathers didn't envision a world where the worlds worst people could reach out at the speed of light to 6 billion people and influence them with propaganda and hate speech and instructions to murder.

and the discussion of "free speech" typically ignores all the many restrictions there already are on what you can say and can't say.

oh boy
6B people watch youtube?
those old farts couldnt "envision" this? lol
so, to you that creates justification to censor?

YOU make the world a scary place, sir.

look you sorry, illiterate dickhead. i didn't say i support censorship. the fact of the matter is that we are censored already. everyone thats not totally fucking retarded agrees you can't and shouldn't scream "he's got a bomb!" in the airport. so lets not pretend there aren't limits on what people can say, when, where and in what context they can say it.

"freedom of speech" doesn't mean you can run around the local shopping mall screaming "lets all kill n|ggers" ...

so what the hell is the difference in allowing videos with people screaming "we really need to get together and kill everyone who doesn't think like us or who doesn't belong to our religion"???

simple answer... there isn't one.

i get tired about "founding fathers" arguments as if in 300 years, nothing has changed.

I think it is a good thing to allow extremist video's in youtube. It gives people an idea of exactly what we are all dealing with.

If people knew exactly the intentions of terorrists or extremist Islam perhaps they would not be so complacent in the face of imminant danger.

I have watched alot of these Islamic Video's and people should make no mistake them The extremists are out there and there is alot of them it is not a small minority group. They live to kill any American or Westernised Civilisation they can given the opportunity.

IN short I think it is vitally important to let these extremist organisations post what they can on Youtube.

Youtube censors everything else yes they better censor Al Qaida shit.

I can't see the propaganda or the "truth" from/about my own government but I able to see videos from Al Qaida that wants to kill me and everyone I know?

Hahahaha. I can barely watch a video of a cute girl shakinit before it's pulled.

Fuck Al Qaida pull their shit. fuck em.

Tuff decision to make.

yeah but all in all
PORN is banned.. cause PORN is what makes people do evil things

not terrorists or extremists

Oh the hypocrisy... Doesn't google filter/censor search results for China? IMO either you have a policy of real free speech or you don't.

Indeed. They are baby stepping FREE SPEECH right out the door, right in front of our eyes, and nobody is doing jack shit about it.

Who cares if terrorists post videos? There are millions of people who think the USA is the #1 terrorist organization in the world. It's all a matter of who you ask and what side of the fence you're standing on. I have to agree with them. NOBODY kills more innocent civilians on foreign soil than the United States Of America. The answers are in the death toll numbers.

You do have a valid point. Though I will say again, one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. I personally think the Muslim extremists are out to lunch but who am I to say they are wrong and I am right? How many people have THEY really killed compared to the USA?

I also think they should still show war footage on the news the way they did during Vietnam. Perhaps then people would not support such behavior. It's easy to be PRO anything when you don't have to look at the harsh reality of it every night while you're eating dinner. :2 cents:

Free speech is in the Constitution but the exception is made for speech that incites crime to be committed. So if it's clear that if the videos are calling for terrorist acts to be committed, then they should be brought down.