Should Google try to prevent terrorism by taking down jihadi videos from YouTube?

Some "online jihadist monitors" are arguing that Google should be doing more to prevent terrorism by taking down jihadi videos uploaded to YouTube.

• [MadRat]

  I can’t decide on this one. If The Turner Diaries hadn’t been publish would the people who were blown up in Oklahoma City been saved? Maybe. If Stephen King had never published Rage would copycat school shootings have not taken place? Possibly, but either way he’s decided Rage will never again be published. Will taking jihadi videos down impede terrorists? We can’t know for sure until it’s too late. Maybe those videos will turn people off to jihad. Maybe those videos will help law enforcement prevent an attack. Could you see a video even if it was illegal and every country strictly enforced its laws? If people get caught train loads of child porn only because they sent their computer into Geek Squad, you should be able to find jihadi videos as well. One of the things that makes humans curious is when something that should be there is removed. Maybe removing those videos would make the situation worse. Seriously, I can’t decide.

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  What about videos from people who want to overthrow the Ahmedinejad/Khameini regime in Iran? Or Uighurs in China? Those governments would certainly label them as terrorists. Is it only anti-US/Western European videos that would be removed?

• [Usagi Miyamoto]

  Perhaps they should just add a laugh track.

• [Flyne]

  Someone has their priorities backwards. Censorship is more of a threat to America than terrorism.

  • [Boomshadow]

    Agreed. Terrorists can kill people, but censorship kills entire societies from inside people’s hearts and minds. I know there’s a potential “slippery slope” fallacy, but in general, any time we start giving people an excuse to say “you can’t do this” for a specific reason, that specific reason starts to get less and less specific and apply to more and more cases.

    Add to that the fact that banning jihadi videos on one site won’t block them from being hosted elsewhere, AND the fact that banning jihadi videos will do absolutely nothing to actually prevent terrorist attacks, and there is no reason to ban the videos.

• [IamInnocent]

  Prove me that this would make any difference.

• [Church]

  Typical response. Suppress talk about a problem, rather than confront and deal with the problem.

  Because that last one is *hard*, dude!

• [Grey Devil]

  I see the point of the argument, though more censorship isn’t the answer. Helping ignore a problem, or sweeping it under the rug, does not solve it at the end of the day.

  If anything letting the vids stay on Youtube helps others be aware of the problem, and i find that more valuable than security through obscurity.

• [Anonymous]

  They’re too busy looking for Downfall parodies.

• [Anonymous]

  Google should be reporting everyone who uploads these videos or posts approving comments of them to every state security bureau it can think of including the relevant foreign ones. Taking the videos down just removes the evidence and makes the jihadis move somewhere else.

• [watchout5]

  I think if you’re going about it to “prevent terrorism” it’s a total failure. However if by “jihadi” videos you mean asking that fellow Muslims join in violence against people that don’t like them? Google should have every right to feel like they could delete them. I’m not in favor of some kind of government forcing them to do so, but I think in the interests of public safety they should at least alert the authorities about the threat of violence, and such crimes should be punished according to our laws. I guess it goes into a gray area if they’re doing it in another country, and by the time it’s on youtube it’s far to late for Google to “prevent” anything.

• [adonai]

  Short answer? No.

  Long answer? Noooooo.

• [Phikus]

  They’d have a quicker time yanking them if the movie studios claimed copyright infringement for movies with terrorist plots.

  • [Church]

    “They’d have a quicker time yanking them if the movie studios claimed copyright infringement for movies with terrorist plots.”

    Well, kill “24″ and… well everything made in the past decade.

• [Phikus]

  Yeah, censorship is the answer in a free society.