Murder, YouTube, and Censorship
Summary: The Google YouTube trailer for the “Innocence of Muslims,” has sparked murders and attacks on American embassies throughout the Islamic world. Google has started blocking the video in some counties, but is that enough? Is that too much?
Innocence of Muslims is a crude and trashy video that portrays the Prophet Mohammad as a hate-mongering bum who approves of violence and sexual child abuse. Considered by Western audiences that adores the popular cartoon South Park, which mocks many religions on a regular basis, Innocence of Muslims is clearly insulting, but it's too boring to be worth a second thought. By conservative Islamic standards it's blasphemy. And, it's sparked the murder of four American diplomats in Libya.
Largely ignored at first, for the simple reason that's it's really not very good by any standard, this YouTube video has now been seized as an excuse for protests and attacks on American embassies in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen.
Google, YouTube's owner, but in no way, shape, or form the video's creator, is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, as part of the Western culture, they're invested in freedom of speech. On the other, this shabby video has been used as an excuse for murderous attacks.
Publicly, Google has said, “We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions. This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video—which is widely available on the web—is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries.”
Since then, YouTube has blocked the video in India. Other Islamic countries, such as Indonesia, Pakistan and Afghanistan have already blocked access to the video on their own. Google has yet to respond to queries about further plans to block the video.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) thinks Google shouldn't take censorship too far. “It is easy to understand why YouTube might feel compelled to act in response to the rioting over this video, especially after three U.S. embassy employees were killed in the Libyan city of Benghazi, but the blame for the violence lies not with the video, but with the perpetrators. Once YouTube has made the decision to pro-actively censor its content, they start down a slippery slope that ends in YouTube Knows Best moral policing of every video on their site. It is disappointing to see YouTube turn its back on policies that have allowed it to become a such a strong platform for freedom of expression. We hope that this new-found enthusiasm for pro-active censorship is a temporary aberration rather than a sign of things to come.”
The real aberration is that we live in a world where a video by a shadowy figure whose real identity remains unknown can provoke unjustified attacks on innocents. Indeed, the American ambassador, Chris Stevens who was murdered in an assault on U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Libya, had opened the U.S. diplomatic mission to the Libyan revolution at risk of his own life.
In a world where the Internet binds us together, there are no easy answers to questions of censorship. One person's sacred belief is another's sacrilege. Google can try to balance censorship and danger, but there are no black and white answers. Indeed, for all of Google's importance, they have little real control. Even were they censor the original video everywhere, copies would, and indeed already have, sprang up all over the Internet.
In the end, Internet censorship, no matter how justified, will fail. We can only hope that wise men and women will eventually prevail over the fanatics whose response to the words and images from the larger world lead only to pointless death and terrorism.
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Talkback
One question-Did all those rioters in the Middle East viewed on World News
The West learned invaluable insights into the human condition and scientific advances from Eastern Muslim societies. (Algebra, fidelity to a common religious belief - to name only a few).
It's about time the East learned a few lessons from the West - like freedom of speech and rational thought.
reply
Hope this helps.
It would appear the the West never learned it's lesson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(film)#Controversy
There were mass protests in the U.S. causing some theater chains to not screen the film. The film was banned or censored in several countries. And in Paris, France, the Parisian Saint Michel movie theater was firebombed while showing the film, injuring 13 people, 5 of them severely.
Religious fundamentalism is not limited to Islam or to the East. Christianity, Judaism and Hinduism all have their own fundamentalists.
Yeah, that happens all the time!
You also forgot the atheistic death toll - 120 million in modern times by antireligious governments, many times larger than all the religious atrocities combined. It is insensitive to rob atheism of credit for this accomplishment.
You are an idiot.
Atheism is nothing but a lack of belief. It is not tied to a hatred towards religion, that would be anti-theism.
heh
I'm sure Atheists believe:
-There is no God.
-Science is a valid form of study.
-That water is made from hydrogen and oxygen.
-That Gold is an element.
-That the Earth is spherical.
-That gravity exists.
Lack of belief, eh? Keep fooling yourself. In order for your statement to actually be true, you'll have to question pretty much everything you think you know about the world.
RE: Yeah, that happens all the time!
Atheism? This is an interesting one. Is atheism a religion? The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that atheism *is* a religion and, therefore, it is protected as such (under free speech). Atheists reject this though (too bad, you're overruled). And with regard to anti-religious governments (e.g., U.S.S.R.), one would have to determine whether or not atheism was viewed as the State religion. Atheists also reject this.
You're trying to turn this discussion into which religious extremists are the worst. I simply won't play. *All* religious extremists, irregardless of their stripes, are dangerous.
The difference is
You have to get real.
Your commentary about atheists is really stupid. Its clearly just a bunch of hogwash you drag up to defend indefensible actions on the part of zealotry. Actions of those kind motivated by some form of zealotry are completely unacceptable from any group. No matter the cause or source. Saying atheists do the same thing is ridiculous and is simply a red herring that dosnt even deal with the problem.
No wonder as humans we cant seem to solve anything. Nobody wants to take any responsibility.
It so dumb. Point out where there has been bad behavior by religious zealotry and some dimwit has to bring up the fact that atheists have killed people as well. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.
They'll have their chance.
If they keep growing, and if they become more organized, I'm sure they'll have their chance.
Atheism already has some dark spots in history, though - social darwinism has been used as an excuse for genocide, and I'm sure if I dug around, I could find some isolated incidents of atheists doing some pretty nasty stuff. I wouldn't hold them as angels here.
"No wonder as humans we cant seem to solve anything. Nobody wants to take any responsibility."
I'd say that includes atheists. They look for every excuse to distance themselves from such events. Talking about such things:
"and some dimwit has to bring up the fact that atheists have killed people as well. "
This is a good example of atheists not wanting to take responsibility.
The issue is censorship.
The blame lies with the murderers
agreed
Those murderers should be judged that is for sure.....about censorship it is not acceptable after things have come down google should end the closing!
The killings had more to do with a celebration of the 9/11
Unquestionably. Not even debatable.
Imagine the outrage they would show, the screams of intolerance if we seen something online we didnt like and decided it was a good reason on its own to just kill a few people from another country.
We are dealing with people who have no tolerance and clearly think that what they believe, just the fact they believe it, is so much more important than another persons life that criticizing their belief is grounds for taking lives.
Its the thought police taken to insane and immoral extremes.
Well,
No, it wasn't about the video. It was about people who manipulate the media where they live that incited such hate.
Appeasement is never the answer.
Persecution of Jews, Gays and non-believers spring to mind. That and the ease of which violence and symbolism is used to hush debate.
There is a lesson to be learned. You cannot appease those who wish you dead.
A much better parallel would be...
Yeah, right around the Dark Ages
You would think that the other radicals would have realized that by now, but apparently not.
Wonder what that says of their intelligence?
Answers here
Contrary to popular belief, witch hunts were actually prevented by the Catholic Church where it had influence. Where it had none, there were maybe 60,000 deaths.
Atheists killed 120 million in just decades, in the 20th century. Millions more were sent to prison and torture in gulags and so forth.
Hitler was famously anti-Catholic. His Holocaust was based on Darwinian principles. "Sir Arthur Keith was a British anthropologist, an atheistic evolutionist and an anti-Nazi, but he drew this chilling conclusion: ‘The German Führer, as I have consistently maintained, is an evolutionist; he has consciously sought to make the practice of Germany conform to the theory of evolution.’"
Thanks for asking :D
Atheists have not a thing to do with it. It dosnt even apply.
All this atheist crap you bring up is red herring nonsense. The fact is all modern democratic western style governments are theoretically of an atheistic nature at the core due to the fact that they are not supposed to bring in or enforce any law that’s designed specifically for a religious doctrine only. Various governments may be guided by certain religious ideals and to some degree or another approve of a particular religion, even promote it to some degree but in the end they are not supposed to run the government in anyway that follows dictates of any particular religion that fly in the face of general humanist interests.
TO proclaim that atheists killed people is garbage. The armies and soldiers for these atheist governments you seem to be claiming killed people were full of religious people, often of numerous denominations and whatever killing done in the name of their country had nothing at all to do with atheism and has no place in this conversation.
If you think its has some meaningful place in this you’re an idiot and part of the problem because that kind of truly stupid commentary gets nobody anywhere and simply reeks of more religious zealotry that wants to be RIGHT above all else and would prefer to continue the violence to prove themselves right as opposed to admitting the important thing is to stop the killing, not try to blame atheists for having some part in this crap.
To try and place religious based killing as also being a problem atheists have is so insanely ridiculous it just goes to show you what religion does to peoples minds. They always have to be right and attacking in even the most stupid and spiteful ways people who do not believe exactly what they believe. It must be awful to so love an ideal that it makes you hate atheists so much because they do not believe what you do that you want to blame them for a kind of behavior that they have never engaged in.
Sure, atheists have killed people. But not in some war or revenge style mob for mean things said about their beliefs. Leave it alone and try living in just enough reality to be part of the solution instead of trying to be an apologist and blaming others for something they clearly have never done.