I wasn’t going to post about this story but my mild comment was considered a violation of CNET’s terms of service. I’ll post that comment at the end but first the story.

YouTube has a long history of providing degenerates with quasi-legal or in some cases illegal spank material. Child exploitation is de rigeur on YouTube and Jihadists often post snuff films on the site. More to the point YouTube provides a forum for Islamists to not just state their views, but recruit, train and engage their followers. Joe Lieberman sent this letter to YouTube management:

May 19, 2008

Dr. Eric Schmidt
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Dear Dr. Schmidt:

YouTube is being used to share videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. The purpose of this letter is to request that Google implement its own policy against this offensive material, remove these videos from YouTube, and prevent them from reappearing.

Today, Islamist terrorist organizations rely extensively on the Internet to attract supporters and advance their cause. The framework for much of this Internet campaign is described in a bipartisan staff report released last week by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs (“Committee”), which I am privileged to chair, titled 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.

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.

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. YouTube also, unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive, and amplified voice, despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

YouTube posts “community guidelines” for users to follow, but it does not appear that the company is enforcing these guidelines to the extent they would apply to this content. For example, the community guidelines state that “[g]raphic or gratuitous violence is not allowed. If your video shows someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated, don’t post it.” Many of the videos produced by one of the production arms of al-Qaeda show attacks on U.S. forces in which American soldiers are injured and, in some cases, killed. Nevertheless, those videos remain available for viewing on YouTube. At the same time, the guidelines do not prohibit the posting of content that can be readily identified as produced by al-Qaeda or another FTO.

I ask you, therefore, to immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations from YouTube. This should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance. In addition, please explain what changes Google plans to make to the YouTube community guidelines to address violent extremist material and how Google plans to enforce those guidelines to prevent the content from reappearing.

Protecting our citizens from terrorist attacks is a top priority for our government. The private sector can help us do that. By taking action to curtail the use of YouTube to disseminate the goals and methods of those who wish to kill innocent civilians, Google will make a singularly important contribution to this important national effort.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this critical matter and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Joseph I. Lieberman (ID-CT)
Chairman, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

In other words, YouTube is allowing Al-Qaeda and their fellow travelers break the terms of service YouTube already has. Lieberman wants YouTube to ban people posting snuff films and hate speech, some things YouTube supposedly does now.

Google’s answer to this is to tell Lieberman to suck it. I’m paraphrasing of course, but fellatious Google groupie Charles Cooper has the company’s statement on his CNET piece that strongly implies Lieberman is lying about the availability of offensive material on YouTube:

Senator Lieberman’s staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, 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.

Of course we all believe there are hundreds of Jihadist videos which do not advocate violence and hate.

Videos containing hate speech are routinely left up if they’re popular and draw enough of eyes to YouTube’s ads. Frank Weltner of Jew Watch has a YouTube channel that has been flagged dozens of times (several times by me) yet he remains unbanned. The anti-Semitic channel called Synagog of Satan has been up since June of 2007. They’re videos breaking the YouTube terms of service but are still up.

I point these two out to show the rank hypocrisy of YouTube when they claim that to be on top of hate speech. Only a person who has never used the site or is completely in the tank could fall for such vapid nonsense. Enter Charles Cooper, who has this to say about Lieberman’s letter:

When I learned that Lieberman wanted Google to pull what he described as “terrorist content” from YouTube, my first thought was that his PR director obviously was incapacitated. But no, this was a team effort in scare-mongering.

Scare mongering. Strong stuff. Then he uses YouTube’s “nuanced” statement claiming that there is no hate speech on the ‘tube to further castigate Lieberman:

That important distinction was glossed over in Lieberman’s official communications with the company. Of course, Google’s refusal to play ball may get it featured as a candidate for Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Point segment, but management’s entirely right to stick by its principles. Lieberman’s gone hunting with a blunderbuss, lumping violent and hateful content together with unpopular points of view. In this instance, Google did no evil.

I know we’re about to get into the thick of the political silly season, but no less than a veteran U.S. Senator should take a look at the United States Constitution now and then. It’s one heck of a document. Really.

If Cooper took a look at the Constitution he’d see that it in fact doesn’t apply to foreign terrorists. But that aside Cooper could have looked at YouTube for 20 minutes and seen that their official statement was essentially false. The Jawa Report included a link to this Jihadi snuff film in their post on this story. I found several within five or so minutes of searching. Most of which had the logo Lieberman discusses.

The Jawa Report also gives Cooper a quick lesson in Constitutional law:

Seems to me like Charles Copper of CNET and Eric Schmidt of Google need to read International Emergency Economic Powers Act as well as executive orders 12947 and 13224. All of which are quite constitutional.

See when a US company hosts videos (or other propaganda) created by specially designated terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and al-Qaeda with the goal of aiding their war against the United States, that is unlawful.

Maybe Cooper should stop checking Wikipedia for his facts on the Constitution and check an actual law book.

Now what about this comment considered too hot for CNET? Boilerplate I assure you, just a response to some geek’s claim that Lieberman should be ashamed of himself. It seemed tame to me but judge for yourself:

So videos of beheadings, stoning, soldiers being shot by snipers etc, is free speech? I thought they were snuff films.

Let me test my understanding of the theories of Hunter and Whoreallycares, the author et al. If I go out and film myself and my crew stomping a couple of Ron Paul supporters to death, add some catchy music and upload it to YouTube, you guys would allow it to stay up because of “free speech?”

The Bill of Rights doesn’t give you the right to film yourself killing people. And YouTube is not legally allowed to profit from snuff films, but they are.

I mean, so the video of that girl getting jumped by that gang is protected by free speech? What about a rape? Child rape? All those things are protected by the First Amendment?

Maybe the Americans who should be ashamed are the ones who won’t bother to learn about the sort of videos being objected to before making their pretentious pronouncements of “patriotism.” YouTube has exploited snuff films and allowed child porn blogs to advertise through their channels for years, all for advertising dollars. As an American that should offend you.

By the way, the Bill of Rights, as Ron Paul and the Libertarians are fond of reminding people, only applies to Americans, not Al-Qaeda operatives from other countries.

But the above violates their terms of service. I thought they were defenders of The First Amendment, but I guess only if you’re an Islamist posting videos of how to make pipe bombs.