Is terrorism the new child porn

[Amr Elsadr]

How about when social media sites unilaterally decide to filter content themselves? YouTube has a clear set of "Community Guidelines" regarding what video content they allow and what they don't to be posted on their website, and their review staff have deemed the video "Innocence of Muslims" to have not violated these guidelines. They have, however, unilaterally decided to selectively block the video from their audience in Egypt and Libya.

YouTube also has a publicly published "Transparency Report" including removal requests (mainly by governments and trademark owners as far as I can tell), including whether or not they have complied with the requests submitted for removal of videos. This report is found here: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/, and to my knowledge, there was no official request from either the Egyptian or Libyan governments to take any action.

I personally find this alarming. I agree that users should either agree or not regarding use of social media sites based on the published ToS, and that the social media sites themselves should not be held accountable for content uploaded or shared by users, however YouTube's decision to selectively filter this video to a portion of their audience without any removal request is IMHO a dangerous precedent, which additionally deprives their registered users in Egypt and Libya from exercising their right to "Flag" the video in question and have it reviewed by YouTube staff should they choose to do so (again, in accordance with YouTube's own guidelines).

Thanks.

Amr

On Sep 26, 2012, at 7:02 PM, Milton L Mueller wrote:

>  
>  
> From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Edward Morris
> 
> Your proposal to hold social media sites responsible for content loaded by it's members is dangerous and must be rejected in whole. That would effectively end social media as we know it. I would encourage this Constituency to join me in respectfully rejecting your proposal in it's entirety.
>  
> [Milton L Mueller] I strongly agree, Edward. People who advocate making an internet intermediary responsible for or legally liable for the content uploaded by its users simply do not understand what they are advocating. There is no reason to pre-filter such things, anyway – if someone uploads or posts child porn, for example, it is a simple matter to report it and to identify and catch the person using normal notice and takedown and warrant procedures. The idea that all of our communications need to be “scanned” so that the .0000123 % of things that are criminal can be caught would make the Internet into an airport security line. Even assuming that it was technically feasible.

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