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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.'"
So they're already stopping the 24x7 broadcast of extremist videos.
This will be a nonstarter. The US government isn't going to start attacking "hate websites" or otherwise poop on the first amendment. Companies like Youtube will certainly comply with the British government. Net result: such content won't be on the most popular avenues of the net, but it'll still be out there for those who are "interested" in such things. So you and I won't be able to browse to it on google video, but it'll be hosted on, I dunno, hatetube or something.
We are not the UK anymore.
Britian asked Google to take down the videos. Google can do what it wants with it's site.
This has nothing to do with freedom of speech because the US government isn't making them.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The First Amendment issues are obvious here, but I have to say, we relegare ourselves to a pack of dumb animals if we make the point that watching something or reading something or playing violent video games means we're going to freak out and imitate or otherwise follow the directions of anything contained within.
We are not three year olds. We can watch hateful, obscene, or otherwise nasty crap and we can make the decision not to be a bunch of zombies about it. Unless and until we insist that people think for themselves and be responsible for their actions, (and law should mandate it - meaning, you can't use "I watched a bunch of nasty stuff and it influenced me therefore the crime I committed isn't my fault" argument) we condemn ourselves to a kind of tyranny where government is the adult who steps in and treats us like impressionable toddlers. Freedom is contingent upon critical thinking and personal responsibility, and I am not willing to accept shackles because there are a smattering of idiots among us who are incapable of it.
The logic that we have to stop thoughtcrime because it might spread or influence people is chilling.
The United States needs to ignore the UK's demand, and the UK, if it insists, can certainly petition google to take action on this.
But unless we rely on the idea that free people in a free society can think critically, why not just invite the government into our lives completely? Why even have a free society, if we're really just animals, a few videos away from going on some kind of horrible killing spree? Why go through the pretense of insisting that human beings are capable, through independent thought and taking responsibility for their actions, of liberty?
The "categorically not allowed in the UK" bit could not, as an American, concern me less -- and should the United States attempt the same kind of argument with the UK in the future, the UK can and should ignore the United States's demands to infringe the right of people to say and read/watch what they like.
The alternative, where the government makes this decision that there's just stuff we can't watch, is scary.
My thoughts exactly. I've watched a few interview from a British Muslim guy named Anjem Choudary (mostly arguing with Richard Dawkins over the inherent danger in religion), and I find it enlightening to know just how crazy some people are out there. We're talking the kind of guy that thinks everyone should be converted to Sharia law, forcefully if necessary. Someone who thinks people should be put to death for leaving Islam. It's strange to watch someone debate a topic, when that debate would not even be allowed if he had his way. Also, by banning these people is makes them harder to find for those needing to detain these freaks.
David Cameron (UK prime minister) has let all the rhetoric go to his head. He actually believes it when the US politicians pat him on the head and tell him that the UK and USA do indeed have a special relationship. Wake up, any balance of power between the USA and UK finished sometime before World War 2, over 70 years ago. The "special relationship" deal is that the USA expects the UK to give their requests special treatment (collude in "special renditions", help out on a war, that kind of thing), but don't expect anything in return beyond maybe the occasional tour of the White House and a signed photo from the president.
Fool. The USA isn't going to listen to any UK request any more than the USA expects the UK to refuse any request from them. They'll shout "1776" and "tea party" and ignore whatever is said next.
That may be so, but the British govt are less likely to hijack a plane and fly it into a landmark.
Why can't we let people believe whatever they like? It's not like a little religion has ever hurt anyone.
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.
Fool. The USA isn't going to listen to any UK request any more than the USA expects the UK to refuse any request from them. They'll shout "1776" and "tea party" and ignore whatever is said next.
You're an idiot. The US cannot agree to a UK request that categorically violates the US Constitution. Britain should know better than to ask for such an idiotic thing in the first place.
It's like requesting that the US make Catholicism the official national religion. It's never going to happen, not for any religion (such a thing would violate the Constitution), and it is bizarre to even ask.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
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.
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
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.
Glenn Greenwald explains it better than I can, so I'll just quote him:
"It's truly astounding to watch us -- for a full decade -- send fighter jets and drones and bombs and invading forces and teams of torturers and kidnappers to that part of the world, or, as we were doing long before 9/11, to overthrow their governments, prop up their dictators, occupy what they perceive as holy land with our foreign troops, and arm Israel to the teeth, and then act surprised and confused when some of them want to attack us. In general, the U.S. only attacks countries with no capabilities to attack us back in the "homeland" -- at least not with conventional forces. As a result, we have come to believe that any forms of violence we perpetrate on them over there is justifiable and natural, but the Laws of Humanity are instantly breached in the most egregious ways whenever they bring violence back to the U.S., aimed at Americans. It's just impossible to listen to discussions grounded in this warped mentality without being astounded at how irrational it is. What do Americans think is going to happen if we continue to engage in this conduct, in this always-widening "war"?
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/07/terrorism
They hate us because we occupy their lands, kill their families, torture them, lock them up with no chance of ever getting out, and prop up other regimes that do the same. "Our freedoms" are far, far down on the list.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!