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."
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:5, Informative)
Because of our involvement and activism in the middle east. We have steadfastly supported Israel since its creation, we invaded Iraq and toppled its government, we have participated in the overthrow of Iran's government, etc etc. We've messed with and in many cases toppled with the national governments in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and others.
We've been dicking around in their business for 70 years. It's easy for the US to send some troops and equipment over and have a massive influence by installing dictators, killing people, etc. - all while pretending it's perfectly acceptable. They don't have the resources to do that, so we get car bombs.
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:4, Informative)
They hate you for coming from your fat rich economy and telling them what to do, and forcing them to sell their oil cheaply, btw.
Bull-fucking-shit. You know who largely sets oil prices worldwide? OPEC [wikipedia.org] (in a manner that would be completely illegal in most of the Western world for price collusion, BTW). Do you know why the US meddles so often? Because OPEC and the Arab world in general hold so tight a fist on oil production, and have shown their willingness to strangle the rest of the world if they don't get their way. The US didn't invade Iraq the first time because it wanted to: no, it did so because Saudi Arabia asked the US to. Gave us a pretty big check to help out, too. The whole region is massively fucked up, has been for literally millennia. The US hasn't always helped, but they also haven't been the ones to start it either.
Re:Censorship, much? (Score:2, Informative)
Those who refuse to learn from history are condemmed to repeat it.
Just because people in your age group feel that events 200 years ago have no meaning to them does not mean other cultures feel the same way. In part, Jews have a worldwide problem because many Christian people hold a grudge against something 2000 years ago. Conflicts today in many cases rooted in conflicts many years ago. Irish and Scottish independence is rooted in events more than 600 years ago and the brutality that was inflicted upon them by England. We may have seen the end (for now?) of Irish violence, but there is still resentment.
The formation of Israel may have been a mistake, but it was a mistake that was designed in the aftermath of WW I. There are two choices today in reality, either the continued support of a Jewish state or the destruction of it. There is no real "third solution" which would involve Israel becoming an Arab state or some type of temporary co-existance on the same land. Israel will be a battleground until their neighbors accept it and live with this acceptance for a couple of generations. There can be no co-existance when Palestinian TV shows children's programming glorifying martyrs and promoting the destruction of Israel. They are taking historical events from hundreds of years ago and reframing them for the children today.
Today the US is still concerned with conflicts in our streets resulting from many African Americans feeling that they are continued to be oppressed as slaves. There have been no real slaves for over 140 years but as long as people on both sides cling to a slave culture and a cutlure of oppressing slaves there will be conflict. A lot of Mexico's problems come from a clear separation between those of Indian origin and those of Spanish origin, with the Spanish heritage folks owning most of the property and wealth with the Indian heritage people existing in poverty and subsistance farming. All of Central America has had these problems for the last 500 years or so and the current "solution" is to export the underclass to the US.
So as much as you might like to ignore history and say that it has no bearing on your life, it does. And it will continue to do so. If you do not educate yourself as to how history impacts you in your daily life you are going to be simply reliving the same conflicts and the results of these conflicts without solving anything.