YouTube Refuses To Remove Anti-Islamic Film Clip 622
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.'"
Good (Score:0, Informative)
Mahummad was a pedophile.
Re:"ethical concerns" (Score:5, Informative)
Marking that NSFW would have been nice. Normally the Onion is pretty clean and work-safe. That image was not.
Re:Just let them kill each other, then we get peac (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:4, Informative)
If the rioters are not religious zealots, what exactly are they rioting about?
Hm...what might people in those countries be angry about...
Really, do you need this list made for you? Do you think the rioters were sitting on their lounge chairs beneath some palm trees in their own personal gardens, and then suddenly saw this video and went nuts?
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
Then you're missing something:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/libyan-peace-rally-slams-terrorism-offers-apology-for-attack_n_1881798.html [huffingtonpost.com]
Re:Just let them kill each other, then we get peac (Score:5, Informative)
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 [youtube.com] there [youtube.com] aren't any [youtube.com] of those [youtube.com] movies [wikipedia.org] or books [wikipedia.org] in the world I guess we'll never know.
Re:It's already out there... (Score:5, Informative)
If the next bad thing declared was 'eating pork insults Mohammad and so kill all the pork eaters'... will you advise the banning of commercials for hotdogs? Leave accountability where it belongs: the ones being violent are at fault, regardless their ethnicity/religion/choice of food.
Personally I find the video more insulting in it's poor quality in both writing, acting and humour and technical work- a high school AV club could have done better.
Re:Icing on the cake (Score:5, Informative)
shores of Tripoli refers to US *interference*? Are you fucking kidding? What sort of revisionist islamo-centric history pipe are you smoking?
You fucking idiot. America attacked the Barbary pirates for the same goddamned reason we launched into the War of 1812. American vessels at sea were being captured, American sailors were being captured, and shit was not right. They were treated no better nor worse than any other aggressor. Any treaty made with them was less a treaty and more -- actually, not just more, it was ENTIRELY nothing but a protection racket.
You've got your shit ALL wrong, son. It was the Barbary states who were interfering with the *United States*, as well as much of Europe, because the Barbary states were strong and their victims were too weak or preoccupied to do anything about it except hand them money. Well, except for the US, who decided to say Fuck That And Fuck You.
Yeah. WE were victimized, BY the North Africans. Not the other way around.
You can argue the tables have turned, but don't fucking misrepresent history. There's not even any question or different take on this particular point of historical significance, there's only what happened.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure sure you saw the most recent coverage about this, but things are a bit more complicated than one movie = lots of violent riots.
For instance, the Libyan assault on the US consulate wasn't protestors (in fact recent reporting says that there were not protestors), but rather a well organized militia associated with al-qaeda. The arrived in jeeps that had black al-qaeda flags. And this is 24 hours after a 9/11 al-qaeda memorial type video was released about the US killing al-qaeda's second in command. His nickname was "The Libyan".
As for the rest of the rioters, we could start with Egypt. According to Richard Engle's latest interview on the Maddow show, the protestors are motivated by religion, yes, but mostly by conspiracy theories. And keep in mind, the ones protesting are a tiny sliver of the population. Those conspiracy theories, like the US secretly funded the creation of this movie, that our troops in Afghanistan are ordered to burn Koran's, that free masons are involved to destroy Islam, etc.. have been subtly and at times not so subtly used by various dictators over the years to create suspicion of the west and unify people under that dictator. And at the same time shifting focus from real problems at home to focusing their attention on 'the real enemy' (the west).
Like is often the case, religion makes a nice simple excuse to act out over a what is mainly a general frustration/fear/anger about the circumstances you find yourself in. Poor economy, no job opportunities, repressive society, and you've been told all your life that their is some big conspiracy that is keeping you down...
It sure doesn't help to tamp down the conspiracy theories when we are still in a "no ends in sight" war on terror that is conducting secret operations all over the place.
Re:Good (Score:4, Informative)
How exactly do you figure? Do you think it's impossible for a pedophile to get aroused by older women too?
You missed my point. What I am saying is that the aisha thing, just like everything else on websites like jihadwatch, atlasshrugs, etc is all about rationalizing bigotry, not finding truth. It doesn't matter what the specifics of any event are, they will always pick and choose an intrepretation that suits their agenda. Just like extremists (of any religion) do.
However, do muslims get to pick and choose what parts of the Hadith they believe to be true?
Yes. It is not unknown for different hadith to be contradictory thus forcing people to pick. Intrepretations of the hadith can vary hugely between different sects - in some cases it is the difference in interpretation that defines the specific sect. This stuff is huge in the religion with all kinds of effort put into figuring out things like the "chain of custody" for the oral reports that ended up being written down and thus the quality of the reports. Some sects even deny the whole concept of hadith.
An important thing to keep in mind is that the issue of aisha's age has always been of little importance. Nobody goes around using it as a justification for child abuse. Most muslims don't even consider it a question of any interest. Ask any average muslim how old Aisha was when she got married and you'll get "I dunno" and a guess from mid-teens to probably mid-20s because that's the Mohammed of their religion. The pedo-mohammed is just the mohammed of people with an axe to grind who aren't even muslim.
Re:It's already out there... (Score:5, Informative)
Wasting my mod points, but it's not about Jesus. It's about the very people who show up late, learn about the miracle (or offensive video or whatever) by word of mouth and then follow the wrong guy. The "real" Jesus is even in the movie, giving the sermon on the mount, and in the beginning.
Re:Just let them kill each other, then we get peac (Score:3, Informative)
There is a good strategy to let people have their say, so we can all laugh and mock them, rather than silencing them.
Freakonomics details the one-man crusade against the KKK in the US, basically by exposing all their secret rituals and so on, essentially changing them from a truly active, vicious organization to a good ol' boys bitchfest and knitting circle.
The human tendency is to want to shut people up, when in fact, the opposite is what's successful.