UK Pressures the US To Takedown Extremist Videos

chrb writes "BBC News and the Telegraph are reporting that the British government has pressured the US government to take down privately hosted extremist web sites and videos, particularly on YouTube. The request follows the conviction of a 21-year-old woman who attempted to murder MP Stephen Timms after watching YouTube videos of radical American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. YouTube hosts more than 5,000 videos featuring al-Awlaki, but has begun to remove them following the British government's complaints. The issue obviously raises First Amendment issues in the US, but Security minister Baroness Neville-Jones has said 'Those websites would categorically not be allowed in the UK. They incite cold-blooded murder and as such are surely contrary to the public good. If they were hosted in the UK then we would take them down but this is a global problem. Many of these websites are hosted in America and we look forward to working even more closely with you to take down this hateful material.'"

Comments

FOX brodcasts promote the same behaivor

[virtualXTC]

The Glen Beck show has been shown to incite mass murder plots. If Google is going to be "forced" to remove these videos, then they should have to remove all Glen Beck videos too.

Reasonable, legal, and likely...

[trims]

Frankly, the request from the British government, both to YouTube (and other companies) and to the US Government is all three: reasonable , legal, and likely to happen.

Reasonable in that these videos (and, yes, I went out and looked at a couple, I'm not going to say where), have no redeeming social value. They're strictly (a) war propaganda (b) pure hate speech and (c) active statements of intent to commit violence. None of these characteristics provided any value to our societal discussion of ideas (which is what the 1st Amendment enshrines, but does not define). No one in either the US or the UK needs to see these for any reason other than military intelligence (which, we can get without allowing them to be made for public consumption).

Legal in that according to both UK and US law, these videos fit within the various exceptions to protected speech (that is, they fit into well-defined categories of speech NOT afforded protection). Thus, it's entirely likely that the UK request to the US government will see some sort of follow-through by the US Executive branch, as the content of the videos isn't reasonably up for discussion as to the legality thereof - it's not like they have to be parsed for obscene vs offensive categorization, and I don't see any court ruling in favor of these videos being protected speech (here in the US). It's actually a pretty cut-and-dried case of Incitement to Violence.

Likely as both the above cases point out, it's pretty much a no-brainer request to the US, as it doesn't run afoul of any of our laws, or even likely to produce a court case. In addition, for private providers, its very clear that they violate pretty much any T-O-S I've ever seen for posting public video or images.

Free Speech is great, but there are well-defined (for very good reasons) exceptions to protection, and this stuff very clearly fits inside those exceptions.

But, I do expect the various TLA agencies to continue to listen to al-Awalki - after all, he's giving them plenty of rope to hang himself by.

Re:Reasonable, legal, and likely...

[trims]

No, no, NO.

Speech as a whole must be evaluated for content before consideration of its legality. Simply because speech contains some political manifesto or content does NOT ipso facto mean it is (or should be) automatically covered and protected. As a flip side, simply because a picture shows a naked form (let's say a child), does not automatically mean it's obscene (or non-protected). The speech/work must be viewed as a whole.

Please, people, take a look at the original founder's writings. No where in there is there any mention that completely unrestricted speech is a universal good or even desirable. There have always been mentions that some speech is simply worthless, and indeed, harmful to society. Free Speech is not just something to have because it's Free. The purpose of having Free Speech is to encourage an open society of ideas, thus enabling a flexible and free society. If some speech conflicts with this goal, then it should NOT be tolerated. The founders were actually quite explicit in their stated intentions behind promotion of Free Speech - they were after the benefits a much more unfettered exchange can provide, but very much mindful that certain forms of speech caused more harm than any (possible) good.

As an aside, does anyone see Free Speech mentioned in the Declaration of Independence (which, is mostly a document defining the inherent rights of people)? As a real good example of this, take a look at the Declaration of the Rights of Man - it notes the powerful good that Free Speech can provide, but also notes the EXCEPTIONS to which Free Speech must be held.

-Erik

Nothing has been taken down due to US government?

[mattack2]

Am I misreading something? The article says that YouTube has policies to take various videos down, and says that "the British government has pressured the US government to take down privately hosted extremist web sites and videos", but it doesn't actually say that anything has been successfully taken down due to pressure from or legal actions by the US government.

Re:The government is not our father.

[fiannaFailMan]

One led to the other. His power of oratory whipped up the anti-semitic feeling that made the holocaust possible.