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Google Blocks 'Innocence of Muslim' Video In Indonesia and India
hypnosec writes "Google has blocked the anti-Islamic video, which was posted on YouTube, in Indonesia as well as India. YouTube has already denied a complete removal of the clip 'Innocence of Muslims' that mocks Islam and Prophet Mohammed. The video has led to protests and violence across the Arab world. The foreign ministry spokesperson of Indonesia and India have confirmed that Google has blocked access to the video. Indonesia has also asked RIM to filter the video on its smartphones."
Google complies with the laws of the country it operates in. If they are required by law to remove something, they do it.
Are you suggesting that big companies in general should be exempt from the law and obey it only as they see fit?
Are they going to block this image from the Onion, entitled "No One Murdered Because Of This Image"? After all everyone tells us that Muslims are no worse than people of other religions, so surely this insult to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism will have the members of respective religions storming embassies and murdering people all over the place?
If not some people might suspect that Islam really is a more violent and savage religion than the others
Frankly I'm not hugely bothered by it.
Nowhere is freedom of speech absolute, it's limited by the ability of the society to tolerate it. Even in the US advocating violence can get you in trouble along with forms of obscenity. Quite relevantly public nudity, which I'd qualify as a form of speech, will get you arrested in a lot of places, but if society was more comfortable with the idea than that restriction would be removed.
In these countries video they're not used to this level of freedom of speech and their society needs time to adapt. I like pushing the boundaries of free speech in these countries, but sometimes things go viral and push past their ability to deal with it. Given that people are dying as a direct result of this video I can see the justification of some limited censorship (given that it's far beyond what they're allowed to do in their own society).
As to whether it's effective is another matter, censorship can easily be circumvented, but maybe it's enough of a hindrance to stop it from going viral.
I stole this Sig
Freedom of speech is a concept that applies to law-making, not web-hosting. Google has done nothing to prevent the filmmakers from distributing this trailer. They are also not blocking it from search.
All they do is abstain from hosting it themselves in ceratin countries in the same way as a US newspaper might refuse to publish a nazi propaganda ad. People perceive publication/distribution as (weak) a form of endorsment, and Google wants to avoid this.
(Also, the movie itself seems to be a piece of crap, regardess of any point it's trying to make.)
it's a tough call
1. there are laws in china that are odious and disgusting in terms of privacy invasion and censorship. such that an american company operating there, by submitting to that law, breaks it's fidelity with the principles of its home country in ways that stink. but google has, in fact, stood up to china in some ways, such as with censorship, and lost market share in china due to that and pissed off the chinese government. go google!
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/01/1450204/google-highlights-censored-search-terms-in-china
other western companies, for example, will do business with oppressive regimes in ways that support those oppressive regimes in evil and odious ways:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/08/31/1434229/finspy-commercial-spyware-abused-by-governments
what a company like this deserves is to be shut down, kicked out, and have their business actively destroyed in righteous indignation of operating from the west while grossly violating important beliefs of the west and in support of evil regimes
2. however, there are also local laws that, while you can find more abstract objections with them, it makes prudent sense to just comply with the local laws to continue doing business there, and also be in a position to effect long term liberty improving change in that country by remaining a force there
such as, for example, with this stupid video: while speech should be free all over the world, it isn't in some places. and going crazy and not cooperating, for example, with germany for not allowing nazi imagery or indonesia for not allowing mohammad imagery, doesn't convince anyone of anything and you just piss off that country and lose market share
so it's better to just comply with local law on this issue. but on other issues, it's better to stick up your middle finger at oppressive governments. each case is different
shrewd governance, of countries or companies, is a matter of finesse
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This morning, Sept 17, 2012, I've been watching and listenting to reports of riots and civil unrest all over the World - from mostly international sources.
While the American news sources are focused almost exclusively on the Middle East, their are riots in China, Japan, S. Africa, Western Europe, etc ....
NONE of them are about Islam. They are all about economics.
Deep down it's the same with the MIddle Eastern riots. This piss-ant video was just a the spark or an excuse for the riots.
ANYONE who thinks these riots are really about Islam being "insulted" is horribly provincial and uninformed.
An example of something similar in the States would be the Occupy Wall Street protests. It's really not about Wall Street "greed". It's about young people pissed off about the percveived lack of economic opportunities and jobs that are available to them - exactly the same reason all those young people in the Middle East are rioting. Give'em jobs and they'll be back in their homes.
We have BILLIONS of people trying to get a slice of the ecnomic pie and the pie isn't growing fast enough for us all to have increasing standards of living. Hence, the haves are getting more and the have nots are being left in the dust.
But go ahead, blame the video and Islam because that's what the media is telling you.
And go ahead be a smug that you have a nice life because you were smart enough to get a degree in the right field in the right country and live in the right are.
If this keeps up, YOU will be affected - if not already.
Agreed, this is monday morning and I just watched the video here in the u.s.
I've seen video slamming the tenets of just about any major religion and several obscure ones.
No reason Islam can't suck it up just like everyone else.
How many movies cover the Inquisition? The Crusades? Bad Buddhist Kung Fu? Make Hindi Gods into animated villains? Show faithful anywhere to be subversive and evil in the name of good?
Suck it up and quit acting like children and the world will stop treating you like children. Keep it up and get spanked.
Hey, that's not a threat, that's nearly a physical law of the universe.
No one asks you to go along with the flow of the world, but if you stand against it, you stand against the world. You stand the chance of an ant to a steamroller, a drop of water in a volcano, an undercover cop at a rap show.
This is all so unecessary for everyone. A peaceful solution for all can be found at http://www.subgenius.com/ .
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
They haven't been killing people over the video. They've been killing people because someone is telling them or paying them to. The video is merely an excuse.
It's worth noting that there is a significant cultural difference at play here. What one culture considers "free speech", other may consider "defamation", "copyright infringement", "inciting of hatred" and many other things.
Consider for example the legislation in place in Germany against denying the Holocaust. Under "universal" free speech umbrella, I should be able to talk about Holocaust not having happened and it being a one big lie. Political and historical realities suggest that such free speech has potential to cause catastrophic damage, and as a result it's illegal in Germany, while legal in, for example, some Nordic countries.
To add to the mess is the current transition from centralised broadcast media to user-generated one. Much of the stuff comes from amateurs with meagre budgets, such as this movie and can be screened worldwide within minutes of being finished. This was an impossibility only a decade ago. We're in a new territory in terms of what is acceptable in different cultures, and as shown with this particular example, free speech can carry significant price paid in blood by those not even related to the speech in question.
There really are no easy solutions here. Internationalism is very difficult to make work because of cultural clashes like these. We simply have to take it one step at a time and hope and work for the best outcome.
I hope that when people in these countries search for censored stuff, they get presented with a page that says:
Results hidden from you because angry men with guns pointed at us have made us hide it from you. This is part of their control mechanism over you that lets them maintain their power over you.
The alternative, Results hidden because you may run around like animals murdering people isn't much better.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.