Analysis: Should YouTube censor al-Qaida?

Published: May 20, 2008 at 10:12 AM

By SHAUN WATERMAN
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, May 20 (UPI) -- Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., called Monday for YouTube to take down al-Qaida videos that users had posted, but the site said most of the videos his office had flagged did not contain material that violated their guidelines and rejected his request that they act to remove all material from U.S. designated terror groups.

In a letter to Eric Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive officer of Google Inc., which owns YouTube, Lieberman urged the popular video-sharing service to enforce its own "community guidelines" against "graphic or gratuitous violence" and said the company should change its rules "to address violent extremist material."

In the letter, released to the media and dated Monday, Lieberman wrote that removing videos produced by al-Qaida and other extremist groups should be straightforward, because "so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance."

In a blog posting, YouTube said it welcomed the dialogue with Lieberman but noted that "most of the videos" his office had drawn to their attention "did not contain violent or hate speech content" and had therefore not been removed from the site "because they do not violate our Community Guidelines."

YouTube, which hosts millions of videos posted every day by its user-community, also rejected the idea that it should pre-screen content for videos produced by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Emerging_Threats/Analysis/2008/05/20/analysis_should_youtube_censor_al-qaida/6060/