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May. 20, 2008 at 8:20am Eastern by Barry Schwartz
US Senator Lieberman Asks For Al-Qaeda Content To Be Removed From YouTube
US Senator Joe Lieberman asked Google's Eric Schmidt to remove terrorist videos, including those of Al-Qaeda, from YouTube. In response, Google has removed some of these videos.
Lieberman, in his role as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, explained "Islamist terrorist organizations rely extensively on the Internet to attract supporters and advance their cause." In a report released by the committee, we learn that these terrorist outfits use "online media operation," including YouTube, to recruit new members.
Lieberman shows that if you search on YouTube for related videos, it will "return dozens of videos branded with an icon or logo identifying the videos as the work of one of these Islamist terrorist organizations." "Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training – activities that are all essential to terrorist activity," added Lieberman.
Joe Lieberman then asked Google "to immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube."
Google responded on the YouTube Blog with the removal of select videos. Google said, "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."
Further coverage on this topic can be found at Techmeme.
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By Barry Schwartz
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