YouTube is letting users decide on terrorism-related videos

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

Nudity. Sexual activity. Animal abuse. All are reasons YouTube users can flag a video for removal from the website. Add a new category: promotes terrorism.

YouTube and its parent company, Google, have been criticized by lawmakers for refusing to prescreen militant speeches and propaganda videos that have been cited in more than a dozen terrorism investigations over the last five years.

But rather than submit to policies that many argue would amount to an erosion of 1st Amendment rights, particularly in an open-access environment such as the Internet, YouTube is taking a decidedly more democratic path — let the customers decide.

... Yet the new category also is "potentially troubling," said George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen, because the phrase "promotes terrorism" is more subject to interpretation than the longstanding language in the YouTube guidelines that specifically forbids material that incites others to commit violence.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-youtube-terror-20101213,0,3375845.story

[snot]

1. Very important. Note,

just a moment ago I was watching a pro-Wikileaks video; and note that some have called it terrorist.

Also, can we get an audit of YouTube's vote counting?

Another important example of the dangers of relying on Cloud-based facilities.

[ZombieHorde]

3. I love your avatar. ATHF rules. nt

[snot]

4. hey, thanks; I've been admiring your gif for ages. Reminds me of a certain artist . . . .

I shd add, I love athf, too; but I also picked the image for my avatar 'cuz it's one of the lite-brite thingies that the Boston police took for terrorist bombs a few years ago.

[uppityperson]

9. 1/31/07. Never forget. eom

[bainz]

5. which video?

I would like to see it, so I can comment in context of this post.

Thanks.

[ZombieHorde]

2. I have seen a handful of videos on youtube with nudity,

some of them are fairly old. I am guessing people who actually search for those videos are not the type to alert on them.

[Tunkamerica]

6. All those pat robertson clips...

that drug addicted pedophile Rush Limbaugh probably has a few that could fall under that.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

10. Why not... there are plenty of home-grown terrorist around.

[davidinalameda]

7. just because something is flagged

doesn't mean it will be removed

and Youtube is a private site; the owners decide what is posted and what's not

if you don't like how they run their show, you don't have to post vids on it

[rAVES]

8. The fundies will flag everything from evolution videos to the amazing atheist.

let us hope google use good judgment in their removal process.