YouTube answers Sen. Lieberman's request to remove terrorist videos

Terrorism may be unpopular, but speaking one's mind about the subject is free speech: That's the basis of a response this morning to one prominent US senator's call for YouTube to remove terrorist-oriented videos.

"While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view," answered the YouTube Team, after Google, the company that owns YouTube, received a letter from US Senator Joseph Lieberman (I - Conn.) asking for removal of all videos on YouTube produced by terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.

"Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training," the Senator wrote in his letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

"YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive, and amplified voice," according to Lieberman, who has previously supported other censorship initiatives around video games, movies, and other entertainment, and is Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

In a blog entry posted on both YouTube and Google, the YouTube Team responded by saying the members have looked at numerous videos pinpointed by Sen. Lieberman's staff as potentially violating YouTube's policies.

"We examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because the depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech," according to the blog entry.

However, most of the videos identified by the Senator's staff did not contain violent or hate speech content and "were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines," wrote The YouTube Team.

Team members also noted that hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day.

"Because it is not possible to pre-screen this much content, we have developed an innovative and reliable community policy system that involves our users in helping us enforce YouTube's standards. Millions of users report potential violations of our Community Guidelines by selecting the 'Flag' link while watching videos."

According to Community Guideline policies, videos "flagged" by users are then reviewed by YouTube, YouTube staff determines whether to take down the flagged videos.

Those Community Guidelines also include the following paragraph: "We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity)."

In his letter to Schmidt, Lieberman also referenced a report his committee released last week entitled "Violent Islamist Extremism, the Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat."

"The report explains, in part, how al-Qaeda created and manages a multi-tiered online media operation that produces content intended to enlist followers in countries all over the world, including the United States. Central to this media campaign is the branding of content with an icon or logo to guarantee authenticity that the content was produced by al-Qaeda or allied organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam (a.k.a Ansar al-Sunnah) or al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb. All of these groups have been designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the Department of State," according to Lieberman.

A check of the report itself this afternoon revealed that, while it did include examples of videos of extremist material located on the Internet at large, YouTube itself was only mentioned -- if it can be called a mention -- once, by way of a URL in a footnote that points to, essentially, a pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah rap video.

"Searches on YouTube return dozens of videos branded with an icon or logo identifying the videos as the work of one of these Islamist terrorist organizations. A great majority of these videos document horrific attacks on American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan. Others provide weapons training, speeches by al-Qaeda leadership, and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits," the Senator contended, in his statement which refers to YouTube more often than his committee's report.

"In other words, Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training -- activities that are all essential to terrorist activity. According to testimony received by our Committee, the online content produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations can play a significant role in the process of radicalization, the end point of which is the planning and execution of a terrorist attack."

Lieberman, however, has backed government censorship initiatives before. In 2005, he introduced the Family Entertainment Act, together with Sens. Hillary Clinton (D - N.Y.) and Evan Bayh (D-Ind.).

Although this bill never became law, it would have authorized the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to "(1) publicize the results of an annual secret audit of businesses to determine how frequently minors who attempt to purchase video games with a Mature, Adults-Only, or Rating Pending rating are able to do so successfully; and (2) [launch] an investigation into embedded content in video games that can be accessed through a keystroke combination, pass-code, or other technological means to estimate certain data about video games with embedded content."

During the 2000 campaign for the US Presidency, Lieberman -- who was then a Democrat -- served as vice presidential running mate to Al Gore.

In an editorial published on September 20, 2000, The New York Times took Gore and Lieberman to task for their plans to take action against the movie industry around the marketing of so-called adult material to children.

"In threatening to aim punitive legislation at the entertainment industry, Vice President Al Gore has crossed a line that no Democratic presidential candidate should ever cross. His party has a tradition of protecting free express. Gore and his running mate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, betray that tradition by advocating what would amount to government censorship," according the the Times' editorial.