YouTube Updates "Community Guidlines" to Ban Drug Abuse, Terrorist Clips
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: YouTube, Google, Terrorist, Videos | Themes: The Internet
Google-owned video sharing site, YouTube, has updated it’s Community Guidelines stating that anyone posting videos containing “bad stuff like animal abuse, drug abuse, or bomb making” could be violating the YouTube terms of service agreement.
The Community Guidelines also now warns users that there would be zero tolerance for “predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, invading privacy, or the revealing of other members’ personal information" and that anyone caught doing these things may be permanently banned from YouTube.
YouTube announced the update to last week and despite the usual off-topic comments from users complaining about other problems, YouTubers seem to be grateful that the site is finally addressing what they deem an important issue.
Back in May, Senator Joe Lieberman contacted YouTube about videos he felt violated the YouTube Community Guidelines. Lieberman said he had seen videos from several Islamic terrorist organizations on and his staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube’s Community Guidelines.
YouTube followed up and removed some of these videos, which the site said advocated violence, showed gratuitous violence or contained hate speech. However, while YouTube removed some of the videos highlighted by Lieberman’s staff, the site remained adamant that free speech and the right to express an unpopular point of view were a large part of what YouTube was about and maintained most of the videos Lieberman’s staff had a problem with did not violate the YouTube terms of Service.
Senator Lieberman released a statement late last week claiming Google had tightened the standards for YouTube videos in response to his pressure. The senator said he expects these stronger community guidelines to decrease the number of videos on YouTube produced by al-Qaeda and "affiliated Islamist terrorist organizations."
Related Links
Press Release: Lieberman Calls on Google to Take Down Terrorist Content
Lieberman Writes to Eric Schmidt Regarding Terrorist Content on YouTube
YouTube Blog: Dialogue with Sen. Lieberman on Terrorism Videos
YouTube Blog: Updated Community Guidelines
YouTube Community Guidelines
Press Release: Google Tightens Standards for YouTube Videos in Response to Lieberman’s Pressure
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Yes, bad the terrorists. Duh. Fricking Google is USA...stand up already, who gives a crap about free speech in this regard.
Thats what freedom of speech is about.. The terriost win if we say ok well we don't like that so you can't say it. Hello.... Thats what they want. Don't get me wrong I hate them as much as the next person, but you can't fight them by taking away any of my freedoms. Then you're becoming just as bad as them.. As far as youtube goes its their site their rules. If they feel something is inappropriate they got the right to remove it, and if they don't they got the right to keep it up.
More power to Joe for voicing his concerns. As long as he doesn't try to actually push it on youtube.
i agree with that although allot of people USA or not don't like these video so you tube might not hear much about this but isn't you tube supposed to be about free speech and technically banning videos like this is a breach of free speech. but we cannot put porn on you tube too but thats another story
This isn't an infringement of rights to freedom of speech... the people that own Youtube can do whatever they want to the site, as this article shows. It technically isn't a public forum for people to express their views (even if that's what they intended to do in the first place), it's a business, first and foremost.
captaincharisma jimmythe1 is correct, this is not a free speech issue. You can send your opinion letter to a publication (magazine, newspaper, or news channel), but they do not have to air your views. Google is a private company offering a service in hopes to make a profit.
However, I wonder which country's legal standards will be used to define some of these terms. Not all countries share the same definition on all the terms presented. (One man's terrorist is another man's revolutionary hero...)
I especially like the part where you are not to reveal other people's personal information.
Privacy is important. A partial privacy (choosing what to make public and what not) is to be controlled by the involved person alone. Please apply that to Google street view and the like. I just CAN'T STAND people wanting to know more about others without them allowing this, but I HATE the means to fulfill this desire (read paparazzi).
"predatory behavior, stalking, ___threats___, harassment, invading privacy, or the revealing of other members’ personal information"
Now I can ban "ThePreacher84040" for threatening me and a lot of other people in the world that we will go to hell for not believing in his god (Jesus Christ). This will work for most fanatic religious videos, or at least it should if YouTube guys are not hypocrites and actually do what they say they'll do.