Google Reveals "Terrorism Video" Removals

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."

Let the terrorists speak

[Psyborgue]

Free speech concerns aside, I'm much more afraid of terrorists promoting their agenda in the dark than those who shout it from the rooftops. It's a lot easier to keep track of people stupid enough to put themselves out in the public sphere (and those who associate with them).

I suspect they may be "terrorists" not terrorists

[crazyjj]

I bet if you could see the list, many of these "terrorists" would turn out to be people just criticizing their governments and revealing government secrets.

Re:Censorship, much?

[__aaeihw9960]

I've always wondered this, but my own investigations have proved futile:

Sorry to break this to you, they don't hate you for your freedom

So, if they don't hate us for our freedoms (I'm with you on this point - that's the whitewashed, political reason), what do they hate us for? Is it our economic policies? Our military strategies? What is it?

Because I'm at a total loss, and I can't get any real information about this in the states. Why did the Islamist extreme folks start wanting us dead? Who kicked that off, and what the hell is it all about?

Re:Censorship, much?

[phantomfive]

They hate the US because of Lady Gaga, because she is immoral and sinful. Not because of her fashion choices, but because they are opposed to music. American culture is corrupt, and it is spreading to the Middle East. (Note that Western Europe at one time had huge fights over whether music was moral or immoral as well, so this is not something unique to Islam).

Sayyid Qutb [wikipedia.org] was an important proponent of this way of thinking, and had a lot of influence in the formation of Al Qaeda. Some people [wsj.com] suggest cultural immorality [wsj.com] is more important to global jihadism than what the US did in Iran 50 years ago (remember Iran is not Arab anyway), but who knows if they are right. Certainly American 'immorality' is an important aspect.

The way I see it for Bin Laden, he was a rich powerful guy, wanted to get into politics (ambitious people often do), but the only way to do that in Saudi Arabia where he lived was to have a revolution. There was absolutely no way to have a revolution with the US supporting the Saudi government. So the obvious first step is to remove the US from the situation. The simple way to do it is to hit Americans hard somewhere, then they run. Americans don't stick around, they run, just like after the Beirut hotel bombings. After America was gone, it would leave Bin Laden free to start a revolution, and it would also make him look very powerful. Middle Easterners are drawn to power, much like in the European middle ages (or really for most of history).

Because lets be honest, with all the mistakes and problems the US has caused in the Middle East, we are still much nicer and better than their own dictators.