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YouTube Refuses To Remove Anti-Islamic Film Clip
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that Google officials have rejected the notion of removing a video that depicts the prophet as a fraud and philanderer and has been blamed for sparking violence at U.S. embassies in Cairo and Benghazi. Google says the video does not violate YouTube's policies, but they did restrict viewers in Egypt and Libya from loading it due to the special circumstances in the country. Google's response to the crisis highlighted the struggle faced by the company, and others like it, to balance free speech with legal and ethical concerns in an age when social media can impact world events. 'This video – which is widely available on the Web – is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube,' Google said in a statement. 'However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt, we have temporarily restricted access in both countries.' Underscoring Google's quandary, some digital free expression groups have criticized YouTube for censoring the video. Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says given Google' s strong track record of protecting free speech, she was surprised the company gave in to pressure to selectively block the video. 'It is extremely unusual for YouTube to block a video in any country without it being a violation of their terms of service or in response to a valid legal complaint,' says Galperin. 'I'm not sure they did the right thing.'"
... google taking it down wouldn't help at this point.
If only the religious zealots realized all they had to do was lodge a false DMCA claim through a bot...
Restrict the video only in places where they can't handle the freedom of speech without maniacal violence. Google got it right for the first time in a while.
Google is showing some spine. Good.
I've seen the movie. It's not very well produced, but it's better than 80% of the non-pirated stuff on YouTube.
Good for Google... This should not be taken down any more than a video calling Jesus or Flying Spaghetti Monster a fraud should
Either you have free speech or you do not. "Ethical concerns" is a thinly veiled word for "censor that which offends us".
The Onion has this pegged...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here is a video of an Egyptian Muslim leader tearing up and burning a Bible... No signs of Christians throwing a tantrum...
FYI, the Innocence of Muslims movie is also available on LiveLeak and other sites.
No, people died because of religious fanaticism. The video was just a largely inconsequential trigger for the current round of violence. But even if said video wasn't there, they'd find another reason.
Google didn't kill anyone - hang the blame where it is deserved -- the religious idealists that actually committed the acts.
Despite Qadaffi's efforts to appease the West in recent years, as soon as he became vulnerable, the US urged NATO to help overthrow the Libyan government. Air strikes, drone strikes, CIA officers on the ground coordinating attacks - the largest military power in the world overthrew the government of this small country - a government which has been making concession after concession to the West in recent years. Apparently not enough. Can anyone imagine the US ambassador in Libya getting blown up if the US hadn't bombed the Libyan government out of existence, working to put its own regime in? You play with fire you get burned.
Imperialism, foreign intervention, torturing Muslims in Abu Ghraib - forcing them to masturbate to the videotaped laughs of sadistic American soldiers, drone attacks, puppet governments, financing the Zionist siege of Gaza - this is what the US is doing to Muslims. Then Korans are burned, put in toilets, mocking videos are made just to rub it in. Then Americans get all indignant that their mockeries of an almost-conquered people are not taken in a light-hearted fashion.
The real question is why is the US over there, why were they bombing Libya and arming the people who overthrew their government. If I was a Libyan patriot, and I knew US insults to Islam would help rally Libyans in an anti-imperial campaign, of course I'd use that. Libyans are responding to everything the US has done to it. The Marines hymn "from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli" refers to US interference in Tripoli going back to the beginning of the 19th century. None of this can be discussed of course, so it all becomes about religion, when really it has little to do with religion. Middle class Muslim Turks are nor burning down embassies. Americans are more gullible and steeped in imperial propaganda then any Muslim is in guile to religious ideas - not that Americans should talk, as the country is crawling with fundamentalist Christianity more than any other industrialized nation.
It's amazing how much and how often things that "incite violence" are held responsible, but the people doing the violence aren't responsible?
Sorry, but forget the "cause" because this is merely an insult at best. Nothing excuses killing and destruction in response to a mere insult. If you can't contain yourself after being angered in this way, you should be destroyed in the most literal sense of the word.
Are you sure about that? He married an 8-year old for political reasons, but stayed married to her long after she reached maturity. If he was a pedophile, would he not have ditched her for another child instead?
(Child brides were rather common in the Christian Middle ages as well; the concepts of pedophilia and age of consent are relatively modern and secular, largely based on women's rights campaigners. In many religions children - in particular girls - are almost treated as property. Remember the Old Testament: "But all the children among the women that have not known lying with a man, keep alive for yourselves." - Numbers 31:18)
Unfortunately, the religious zealots are not the problem here. Religious zealots are a minority, both of the rioters and in general. The religious zealots certainly would be content to see the videos removed, and much as I would criticize them for that sort of censorship, at least nobody would be killed.
The rioters were angry before the video was posted. The video was nothing more than an excuse (perhaps to themselves) for this sort of behavior; it could just as easily have been a book, idiotic comments by some preacher, a bomb dropped by the air force hitting a day school, etc. I doubt that most of the rioters had even heard of the video prior to hearing of riots elsewhere, and I doubt that most of them have even seen the video.
Palm trees and 8
And the world was populated through incest, polygamy is a-ok, slavery is dandy, and killing non-believers is supported. At least, that's what I get from a few passages in the Bible. What's your point again? That the Koran, like the Bible, is an origin myth massaged to also be a political and social guide to the world? Or that by pointing to the right verse, I can support whatever I want?
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
What happens when someone says, "That video might cause people to revolt against their government!" -- does Google take that down too?
Either we have free speech, or we do not have free speech. If Google is going to be the service provider for an important communications medium, they need to respect free speech. The video did not say, "Go out and riot." People who were already angry saw the video and exploded.
The Chinese government claims their censorship is to keep the peace as well. How ironic for Google to follow that same logic, after all they went through with China...
Palm trees and 8
Lets say you are some person in that country trying to make up your mind about how bad the video really is. Your religious neighbor says it is the worst form of blasphemy ever.
Pre Google Ban, you could have watched it and said "well this sucks and is stupid, why should I care about this?"
Now they have no choice but to believe the neighbor, perhaps go out and protest as a result.
Blocking the truth from view never makes things better, especially in a situation where so many seek to inflate the importance of a single video.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One school of thought on this is that the violence is an attempt by one of the more militant branches of Islam to get attention.
The real cause of riots in Egypt is a steadily declining standard of living since Egypt hit peak oil in 1996. Oil production has declined 45% since 1996.
I love Harris and Dawkins. But they don't get it. They think that religious belief can be disputed on a rational level.
It cannot.
Religion appeals to our emotional primitive brain. That is why you have people who can build atom bombs and understand the physics of it still believe in the Biblical god. They have the intellectual ability - more than I - to dispute on rational and logical grounds why the Biblical God is as likely to exist as the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, and yet they do.
And it's just not the Biblical God. Humans are predsposed to have magical thoughts. Whether it's making a deal with the Universe, Karma, or anything else for a better life or what have you. It's our brain that want's to see patterns where none exist it's our brains unable to accept that this is all there is. There must be something more to life than eating, fucking and shitting. Hence, for modern people the stubborn belief in God and other superstitions.
Nothing excuses killing and destruction in response to a mere insult
Funny how American Muslims, even orthodox Muslims, are not rioting, even now that they know about the video and presumably have had the chance to watch it.
Angry people do not need much to set them off, and the rioters have been angry for a long time. They live in awful places, they have seen multiple wars (no, not "seen" as in "live from a foreign country," but actually seen tanks rolling down their streets and bombs dropping from planes), and most have not lived under any sort of democratic system. The video was just a spark, and it just happened to be right next to a crate full of dynamite.
Palm trees and 8
I wonder if Larry and Sergei, both jews, would take issue with a video revealing just how insidious jewish activity is in global politics, the nature of jewish control over the US economy and political space and the belief held by jews that it is jewish destiny to dominate the world.....
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
I know I shouldn't respond to trolls, but yes, there's tons of antisemitic videos on YouTube.
Most of them are malicious flamebait, just like your comment and the "innocence of muslims" video.
No sig for the moment.
I wonder if Larry and Sergei, both jews, would take issue with a video revealing just how insidious jewish activity is in global politics
Since there aren't any of those movies or books in the world I guess we'll never know.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
So, insulting violent religious fanatics and inciting riots is fine, but having a 50 year-old record playing in the background of a video of your dog running around the backyard is completely outside the bounds of acceptable human behavior.
And using the words "super" and "bowl" together will earn you permanent banishment.
Fucking world...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Just have the Muslims copyright Mohammad's image. Problem solved.
Have gnu, will travel.
I agree if you talk at all the people believing in the same God. You know, Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Yes, cause they are all the same. I remember fondly when Viacom and Fox were razed to the ground and the CEO's raped, killed and dragged through the streets by Catholics because of the way that Jesus was portrayed on SouthPark and Family Guy. And the nasty stuff that Jews did to Sarah Silverman and Seth MacFarlane before cutting off their heads for not just leaving Judaism, but ridiculing Jews and God.
Good thing that hating people for their religion is considered bigotry... well, except it is.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
No, people died because of religious fanaticism coupled with decades of American Imperialism.
FTFY; let's call a duck a duck, shall we?
Since we're quaking about the middle east, let's not leave the British & French out. Their decisions about how to divide the Ottoman empire has not helped. Nor the decision to create Israel.
The blame would be placed solely on the shoulders of the "bible thumpers or skinheads." It wouldn't be inappropriately misdirected at a movie trailer.
Of course religion fucking bad. read the bible to see how killing, maiming and stoning to death is recommended to please the god. The peaceful religionists are not following their religion.
For the last time, Atheism in NOT a religion, there is no deity involved
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
"Just let them kill each other"
I have more humane proposal.
We give out tons of aid money: (all amounts USD$ for 2010)
Afghanistan = $11,446,800,000
Pakistan = $2,853,500,000
Iraq = $2,087,900,000
Egypt = $1,698,900,000
Sudan = $975,900,000
Gaza = $693,100,000
Why don't we just say: ...and so on.
Every time you kill an American, we take $80 million of your aid money, and give it to Israel.
Every time you attack an embassy: $200 million
Every time you issue a fatwa (on some cartoonist or author, or filmmaker, etc.): $10 million
Any time the violence stops, that aid level is restored the next year.
If you just cut off all their aid, they have no incentive to do anything.
This way, they have incremental rewards to act civilized.
We've "adapted" the religion to fit the times.
Oh, so that's why homosexuals can get married in any state in the US?
Or that abortion clinics are allowed to conduct their perfectly legal business without harassment.
Whilst religions have adapted in other western countries, the US is alone in it's Christian fundamentalism.