Google Reveals "Terrorism Video" Removals 194
jones_supa writes "Google has revealed it removed about 640 videos from YouTube that allegedly promoted terrorism over the second half of 2011 after complaints from the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers. The news was contained in its latest Transparency Report which discloses requests by international authorities to remove or hand over material. YouTube had also rejected many other state's requests for action. Overall, Google summed it had received 461 court orders covering a total of 6,989 items between July and December 2011. From those, it said 68% of the orders were complied with. Google added that it had received a further 546 informal requests covering 4,925 items, of which it had agreed to 43% of the cases."
Censorship, much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Terrorism (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:free speech (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no legal guarantee of free speech in this context. The (metaphorical) microphone belongs to Google, since they are hosting everything and letting people upload their stuff at no cost. As long as they can make money off of what people say into their microphone, they'll let them keep talking. And if Google decides they occasionally want to grab their microphone back and make somebody stop talking into it, that's their right. People are free to complain and criticize such treatment, but that doesn't affect Google's right to do what they want with their microphone (metaphor for website).
Ironically, it could arguably be a violation of freedom if Google didn't have the right to censor their own website.
Re:Terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Terrorist - someone I don't agree with - probably lives somewhere sandy.
Troll: someone who I don’t agree with - probably lives in a basement somewhere.
Re:Let the terrorists speak (Score:4, Insightful)
No free speech issues here at all. The service is privately owned, they can decide who can show what on their service. You have no rights on their private service.
Now, perhaps you can be mad about who they choose not to serve, but they have the rights, not the people uploading the images.
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of why they might say they 'hate' the US (infidels, meddling, etc.) the real reason is, at the end of the day, not a whole lot different from why the US 'hates' the terrorists: They want an enemy.
They have a lot of social and political problems, and because they cannot fix them (and really, do not want to because that would require advocating their control) they create a war. It lets the leaders accumulate more power while giving the people someone to blame for their problems other than their leaders.
Why the US? As the 'most powerful' country it's easy to come up with reasons (and not necessarily inaccurate ones!) that it could have negatively impacted people (e.g. selling arms to Israel, trade stuff, cultural influence, etc). That also means that you are expected to lose your war, which is nice because it means you don't really have to try that hard because you can also blame your failings on them being too powerful. This gives a bonus of making you then underdog and any small victory huge. The are also a few other things like being non-islamic and well known and all that.
(As you'll note, the basic ideas here are what makes terrorists, in turn, a great enemy for the US: far away, impossible to actually defeat, and different(==bad).)
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
US monetary and political support for Israel dwarfs all other countries combined. You follow up your argument that saying they hate us because we aren't them. So why don't they focus their attention on Switzerland? The Vatican? Canada?
We are the big fish in transgressions against their will. Whether their will should be tolerated or not is another story, but the transgressions are the cause, not just because we are free or we simply exist.
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:3, Insightful)
Google also censored the 16-year-old girl who was reading from her Bible the passages that forbid gay marriage. (They claimed reading a text that has been revered by billions of humans beings over 6000 years is "hate speech".) Sometimes they are a little heavy-handed with their removals. Meanwhile they left the videos calling her a "cunt" and threatening to murder her as okay.
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:0, Insightful)
Strange the translation I have of that text doesnt exclude gay marriage. Btw the text also isn't 6000 years old and I fear her special translation is far younger.
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate speech doesn't stop being hate speech because someone writes it down. It also doesn't stop being hate speech because a whole lot of people agree with it. The Bible is less than 500 years old. If people did not submit the other videos for removal, then it's not a judgment call on Google's part.
I have no idea how your post got modded insightful.
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)