The selective censorship of “Innocence of Muslims” in Libya and Egypt “reeks of paternalism.”
Ari MelberThe protests against the now infamous YouTube video disparaging the Prophet Mohammad have thrust YouTube, and its parent company Google, into a tough situation.
While the company says it values free speech and usually only removes videos that violate its policies, it is experimenting with a deliberately inconsistent approach to the crisis surrounding the video, “Innocence of Muslims.”
Google will continue hosting the video in most of the world, since it does not meet the company’s definition of hate speech. But it is now blocking access to the video in Libya and Egypt, where the video has contributed to violent riots over the past several days, as well as India. (The English-version of the video has been viewed the most in Egypt, Canada and Tunisia, according to YouTube data.) The company released an unusual statement explaining its decision:
“This video—which is widely available on the Web—is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube…. given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted access in both countries.”
Google argues that its geographic relativism is also necessary because what is acceptable “in one country can be offensive elsewhere,” and it expressed sympathy for the people murdered in the attack in Libya.
While few would challenge Google’s motives in this situation, it is easy to see why this is a problematic step for a global publisher. Whether the local pressure is from autocratic governments or violent mobs, the company should not risk the perception that such activity is rewarded with censorship. It’s hard to decide when a video crosses the line from advocacy to hate speech, or from documenting torture to glorifying it—a grisly question raised by videos uploaded from the Syrian crackdown, as The Nation reported at the time—but the answers are binary. Videos found to violate the policy come down. A localized approach is trickier, and it raises the temptation of tamping down controversies by proactively warping free speech in the very places where it is most threatened.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which is the closest thing to an ACLU for the Internet, said that Google’s decision could mark a step towards YouTube “proactively censoring its content” and supplanting its own “moral policing” of speech instead of applying uniform safeguards. Jillian York, who directs the group’s International Freedom of Expression program, said “Google is in the wrong” for censoring the video. Given the reported pressure from the White House and the absence of any local legal order, she told The Nation, restricting the access only “for Egyptians and Libyans” simply “reeks of paternalism.”
Another expert in the field, author Rebecca MacKinnon, questioned whether the move augurs a new trend, or, as she told the Times, reflects “an extremely exceptional response to an extremely exceptional situation.”
Yet there is nothing exceptional, unfortunately, about religious speech drawing violent reactions, whether it occurs online or off. Companies like YouTube will continue to be tested on their commitment to the mission that made them such popular and profitable websites—providing an open platform to a wide range of ideas from around the world.
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.