Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 10:57 am
Joe versus the Google
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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About Swampland
Ana Marie Cox is the founding editor of Wonkette and the author of the novel Dog Days. Read more
Joe Klein is TIME's political columnist and author of six books, most recently Politics Lost. His weekly TIME column, "In the Arena," covers national and international affairs. In 2004 he won the National Headliner Award for best magazine column. Read more
Senior Writer Karen Tumulty has been TIME's National Political Correspondent since 2001, and has also covered the White House and Congress for the magazine. A native of San Antonio, she is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Business School, where her career choice has significantly lowered the average salary of her graduating class. But she gets lots of free magazines. Read more
Jay Carney is TIME's Washington bureau chief. He has covered both the Clinton and Bush 43 White Houses, as well as Congress. Before coming to Washington, he spent three years reporting from TIME's Moscow bureau. In his next life, he would like to write for Sports Illustrated. Read more
Jay Newton-Small Jay Newton-Small covers politics for TIME. She has covered the Bush 43 White House and also Congress from the DeLay era to the present. And, yes, despite the misleading name SHE is a she. Read more
Michael Scherer is a correspondent in TIME's Washington bureau covering the 2008 presidential campaign. He has worked national assignments for Mother Jones magazine and Salon.com. Read more
Mike Murphy is a political consultant who helped elect more than a dozen GOP Senators and Governors including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. In 2000, Murphy was a senior strategist for John McCain's presidential campaign.
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