YouTube Declines Senator Lieberman Request to Remove Terrorist-Produced Videos

If US Senator Joe Lieberman had his way, videos of a droning Osama bin Laden and fuzzy car bombs would be banned from the internet. YouTube – the popular site for short internet videos on all manner of topics, from pets to politics – rejected his request to remove videos sponsored by terrorist organizations that “promote violence against the West,” writes Heather Havenstein for Computerworld. Lieberman based the request on YouTube’s own community guidelines, which prohibit gratuitous violence. YouTube receives hundreds of thousands of videos each day and does not pre-screen any, instead relying on community policing and complaints. Some analysts suggest the community-policing system is inconsistent, while others suggest that any censorship is dangerous. Then again, there’s value in not chasing terrorist groups to remote parts of the internet and a YouTube tracking system that shows talking cats are more popular than bin Laden. – YaleGlobal