Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Michelle Malkin: YouTube Goes Dhimmi



I'm late in covering this, but it's a must see. What happens if YouTube, essentially TV for the people and by the people, starts banning content despite no law having been infringed? If they ban content on religious grounds then what stops them banning on political grounds? How can YouTube be TV for the people and by the people if it starts banning content that infringes no law?

If YouTube bans legal content based on user complaints or internal policy bias then it's no longer for and by the people. It becomes for and by some of the people and discriminatory against those that support free speech. Why? Because those that support free speech won't expect legal content they disagree with to be banned but those that don't support free speech, but only their own singular opinion (in other words, the bigots) will complain about everything they object to thus resulting in a ban. Freedom of speech is therefore attacked, weakened and eventually killed. And victory handed to the extremists and bigots that cannot tolerate being challenged with alternate views.

Well done YouTube - you've joined the list of appeasers sacrificing freedom of speech to those that oppose freedom.

If you enjoyed this article please feel free to digg it down below.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

COme on! This is not a violation of free speech. It is an excercise of free speech! Youtube is a private site and they have the right to include or exclude anything they wish. Do I have the right to dictate the content of your site? Of course not. Just because youtube puts together a large audience, does not give her or anyone else the right to demand access to that audience that soneone else created. BTW, before you make assumptions about whether my view on this is colored by whether I agree or disagree with the content fo the banned movie, I actually would like to see it posted. But I am pro-freedom. Freedom for you and youtube to post and not post whatever you choose on your sites.
Why don't you contact Michelle and offer to post her movie on your site?
Allen

chooseDoubt said...

YouTube's slogan is "Broadcast Yourself". It's entirely reasonable that this should be "Broadcast Yourself within the constraints of applicable law", although certainly less catchy. But are you really telling me that you think it should be "Broadcast Yourself so long as those that don't care about your right to free speech actually agree with you"?

We're not necessarily talking about YouTube providing the motivation here for the censorship. But if they act on complaints when content has infringed no law then it is inevitable that they will receive less complaints from those that support free speech than from those that don't. The result that the system becomes biased in faovur of those that do not respect the freedom of others and that is exactly what has happened to Michelle's video. Intollerant pro-jihadis have removed Michelle's right to make her statement and the publics right to view it.

YouTube is a company and not a public service and so there is no law stopping them from doing this. But that doesn't stop it from being stupid, wrong and basically a violation of their "Broadcast Yourself" slogan because it limits and will increasingly limit the ability to broadcast oneself to only those that don't respect the rights of others with different opinions to broadcast themselves too. So yes, I would expect YouTube to put the video back up unless it infringes a law just as I continue to expect, despite constant dissapointment, that news corporations will be impartial.

If they are not impartial then let's wait for all the clips on evolution to be taken down due to creationist complaints and all the clips on Christianity to be taken down due to Muslim complaints and so on.

They should stick to a restriction to legal content and they should never ban content due to user complaints without a legal requirement to do so.

Anonymous said...

as ever, choosedoubt shows the way.