Slashdot Mirror
Egyptian Blogger Silenced by YouTube, Yahoo!
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."
Nobody has the right to express their views through somebody else's medium, particularly graphic violence through a medium like YouTube that is marketed as family-friendly. This guy hasn't been silenced, he's been kicked off particular services. He is free to use other services, isn't he?
Let's not dilute and weaken the term "censorship" please. It is a despicable act and Google and Yahoo choosing not to provide service to him is not even close.
Uhm... internal decision? So they mean that they didn't bother to even wait for the government to order them to remove it? And this is supposed to make them look better or what?
c++;
There is an adult content flag for certain videos on Youtube for a reason. That is more than ample to protect users from unwanted contect. Besides, if someone finds one of his videos I doubt they did so by searching for cute pink daisies. They are owned by Google, after all.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Censored bloke: "By far the biggest blow to the anti-torture movement in Egypt"
..."
YouTube: "Graphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don't post it."
Commentary: "OK, why then can I find dozens of videos of people getting tasered by the police? If you ask me, a video of someone getting shocked with a high voltage weapon can definitely be described as graphic violence. And many will argue that the violence in such videos cannot be qualified as gratuitous.
Yeah, we know. And if McDonald's don't want to serve a black person they don't have to, and you can take your business elsewhere. Isn't the free market wonderful!
c++;
If you RTFA, there's expressed what I think is a very valid point. If youtube forbids vids containing graphical violence, then why aren't all those people uploading videos of people getting tasered by police officers (for example) getting their accounts banned. IMHO It's not a matter of "Terms of Service". It's a matter of a company choosing to apply those Terms with a double standard. A double standard that get's a the account of a guy who uses youtube to denounce torture banned. And that is wrong both ethically and legally.
My blog
In this case though, they should allow them because the graphic nature serves a greater purpose to humanity. In other words, if their policy is hiding a truth that people need to know, they should not apply their policy in that case.
The problem is that you can find some really graphic violence of, say, animals being slaughtered on YouTube. YouTube appears to be selectively enforcing its TOS. Nailing down politically undesirable scenes of violence, while ignoring desired or neutral violence, suggests a major problem with priorities.
Discrimination on the basis of race (and some other traits) is illegal in the US. All other, unprotected, kinds of discriminations are legal, although the list of the protected ones is growing.
Indeed, it is.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
In this case though, they should allow them because the graphic nature serves a greater purpose to humanity. In other words, if their policy is hiding a truth that people need to know, they should not apply their policy in that case.
Don't you think that opens up a bigger can of worms? Applying TOS to some things, and not others, regardless of truth or intent or anything else that is intangible like that seems to me to be dangerous. Apply the TOS across the board, or change the TOS. That should be the only 2 choices.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
"If a PRIVATE COMPANY doesn't want to host your content, they do not have to" But that selfsame PRIVATE COMPANY must bear the consequences of their choice in the PUBLIC OPINION.
Private entities have the right to censor, but it remains censorship. States also have the right to censor; it doesn't stop the act from being censorship when it occurs. Nor does it prevent the act from being wrong.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Discrimination on the basis of race (and some other traits) is illegal in the US. All other, unprotected, kinds of discriminations are legal, although the list of the protected ones is growing.
Who claimed that anything was illegal? Are we only allowed to complain about illegal things, and not allowed to discuss the ethics of legal actions?
I've reread the OP, and I'm trying to see where he claims this is against the constitution?
Have you forgotten that the First Amendment also guarantees our right to criticize YouTube's actions? That is, after all, what this thread was about.
It is rather disturbing when people hold up the First Amendment as a reason not to criticize the despicable acts of some private entity.
If I were a shop owner I would be sure to make it very clear in my advertising that I sell to anyone from any "race" who's being discriminated in other shops. And at a discount! Let the racists lose sales. I don't mind getting the money.
Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
And we are entitled to complain about it - we are entitled to publically state that what they are doing is immoral - we are entitled to think much less of the companies involved - we are entitled to ask them for an explanation - we are entitled to use other services.
What you appear to suggest is "don't complain, just use someone else". You seem to think that complaining has no effect. That's not true, though - clever companies listen to complaints even before the users abandon their services. They change their behaviour not only when it's already costing them money, but also when it appears likely that it might do so. Apart from that - raising the issue gets other people interested, and that puts even more pressure on the company involved.
Voicing our opinions is one of our fundamental rights. Exercising this right may occasionally have negative consequences for companies doing immoral things. Tough cookies if their shareholders don't like it.
I'd consider one of the most important points in teenager education to be social responsiblity and the explanation of democracy to kids (not the "We're a great democracy? Why? Because!" reasoning, but a broad education about what it means to be living in a democracy, what are the specific requirements of a democracy, comparisons and examples for the lack and successful fulfillments of those requirements, what responsibilities does a citizen have who is living in a democracy, etc.).
Videos like this are very educational. For example police brutality in Hungary, that was orchestrated by the current government on peaceful protesters, where even an opposition member of the parliament got beaten up by police wearing no identification numbers, should not be allowed to occur without major effects to that government. It did. It was only possible, because there is still a large portion of contemporary hungarian society that was born and educated in the pre 1990 era, when a citizen only had to shut up in order to be a good citizen, only had to shut up and look for their own interest. Forming groups and exercising solidarity was prosecuted. In a democracy minding your own business is not enough. A democracy presupposes an educated electorate that actually gives a shit about the leadership of a country, it presupposes social solidarity. Otherwise, what would be the point of living in a society at all?
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Quickly scan the article, where is yahoo mentioned? does slashdot editor ever check the source?
Of course, maybe the videos were causing them back-channel grief in Egypt or setting a dangerous example with some future strategy of theirs.
2) You are assuming that this is the reason his content was removed. That is EXTREMELY unlikely. If his content was popular, and all evidence say it way, lots of people were watching it and generating ad revenue for Google. The ONLY reason they would give up that revenue if they feared a greater loss of revenue. Like the Egyptian government threatening to block Google traffic. There is not one iota of doubt in my mind that they sites weren't removed due to pressure by the Egyptian government, who they don't want to piss off, so they're not SAYING they were pressured.
3) In my opinion, YouTube does not have a choice in the matter. Broadcasters either must accept all liability for everything on their airwaves (for example, television stations) or they must be "common carriers" that simply provide "service" and have nothing to do with the content per se (for example, telephone companies). YouTube wants to have it both ways, censoring the stuff they don't like but arguing they're "common carriers" when people post copyrighted content. Of course, "common carrier" rules don't apply to Egypt, but if they want to operate in both nations they have to comply with both sets of laws. In the case where the laws in two nations conflict, the multinational company (like Google) has to choose which laws they're going to break and accept the consequences.
So Google has a choice of getting sued for civil rights violations in the United States, or getting thrown out of Egypt for not turning in human rights workers. They have chosen the former, just like they did in China. In other words: Making money off dictatorships and torturers is more important to Google that civil rights or the lives of innocent people.
Pretty "evil" of them if you ask me. his content was removed from his blog... or if his blog was removed... that might be sensorship. Um, they DID shut down his blog. That's the point.