Free speech wins (well, you know, this time):
Senator Lieberman’s staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, we examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech. Most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines.
Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube — even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos. While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds. Of course, users are always free to express their disagreement with a particular video on the site, by leaving comments or their own response video. That debate is healthy.
I had thought the guy could not be more useless than he is campaigning for McCain. Clearly, the senator has too much time on his hands. In his defense, however, he had every reason to believe that Google would be happy to cave to whims of paranoid authoritarians:
China blocks images of the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989, Germany bans all Nazi propaganda, and Google negotiated with Turkey when that country blocked YouTube videos about an independent Kurdistan.
On the other hand, as a friend points out, could there be anything better for the war on terror than to turn our enemies into housebound, Technorati-addicted internet famewhores? Answer video upon answer video! What plots would fail to get planned while Ahmed and Ali are in a furious Guitar Hero duel? Imagine the huge timesuck on terrorist productivity LOLalQaeda would be! I made u a geehad but then I wasted it.
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