Hacker News Reader

Comment by roboneal | Hacker News Reader

Does the Obama administration really want to enter the business of suppressing every "inconvenient" video that might offend the sensibilities of Middle Eastern mobs?

View on HN

It was just a request. A request they are free to make and Google is free to decline.

One (edit: four) of Obama's civilian employees was killed by an angry mob, ostensibly because of this video, so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask. I'm also glad Google declined.

It's not appropriate for the Executive branch to make requests to remove content that is political for political reasons. This has a chilling effect[1] and can thus be rightly judged by the populace as being against our shared reckoning on free speech.

1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect_%28law%29

The WP article specifies that there must be threat of legal sanction. There was no threat in this case, only a request.

They could have quietly clicked "Flag as inappropriate" as anyone else.

Instead, they made a public "request" whose intent was to put pressure on Google outside it's normal "review process".

They could have done lots of things. Using soft pressure in various ways is not something that's new to governments or generally detrimental or something that's ever going to go away.

I guess Obama could also have written an anonymous letter to the editor instead of having a speech announcing and advocating his jobs programs. But that's not how the real world works. Obama openly and strongly advocating X, Y and Z is not tyranny.

They also asked the pastor not to do the Koran burning. If there is no implied legal threat, what is the big deal? The difference in this case is going after a third party host rather than the original poster.

They made a public request whose intent is at least partly to persuade people in the Middle East that the American government does not support the bigoted views of the filmmaker. The government has an entirely legitimate wish to dissociate itself from this film and dispel the perception that it is intended as a piece of propaganda.

"for political reasons"

I would say this is more of a security issue. If the protests had been peaceful, and had there been no deaths, I doubt this request would have ever been made.

>If the protests had been peaceful [...] I doubt this request would have ever been made //

So USA doesn't negotiate with terrorists but does what they want as long as there's a threat of violence?

When did violent mobs become terrorists?

What's the approved definition of terrorist that you are using?

From Collins, via dictionary.com - "systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve some goal". Seems to fit?

The key word there is systematic. A mob is not methodical in its plans nor has any regularity, therefore, it does not systematically use anything.

The mob was the specific instrument in this instance. Mobs are used regularly for similar purposes.

IMO the question at hand is whether as soon as some group threatens violence the USA kowtow. This appears to be the case here - the USA administration intervening in the free speech of a citizen in order to further the aims of a group because that group has threatened (and acted) violently.

I don't agree with the request, but I can understand where he's coming from. Obama is personally responsible for the lives of every government employee working overseas. Directly or indirectly, it is his orders that put them there. When the protests started, I'm sure it crossed his mind that somewhere, some of his people were going to die in retaliation for the movie. If I was in his shoes, and I thought that the voluntary removal of the video might save some American lives, I would have asked too. I mean seriously, a phone call or an email to save a person's life.

Unfortunately, there is a fundamental flaw with his reasoning. The extremists who actually conduct such attacks have no intention of backing down if their demands are met, so once the video was out, someone was going to die anyways.

I think it's a mistake to say "employee was killed because of the video". They were killed because of barbaric rules that extreme version of Islam promotes, and those who take it seriously enough to blow themselves up and other people. I applaud Google.

> ostensibly because of this video

That video had nothing to do with anyone being killed. It was an excuse used by the mob to justify their desire for murder and violence, so they would not appear as complete savages.

I've watched that video, and the worst I can describe it is with words: "silly" and "amateurish". It wouldn’t even pass the litmus test for the type of speech that incites violence.

It’s clear that those people were egger and willing to kill Americans and Westerners long before this video was made.

> so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask

It's completely unreasonable to ask the American people to throw out parts of the Constitution to try to appease clearly incompatible religious and juvenile groups half a world away.

My understanding of how mobs work might be wrong, but I think it cannot be that that mob used it as an excuse. It could be the case that there was a political/religious leader who used the video as an excuse as masses are not eager and willing to kill anyone.

> ...masses are not eager and willing to kill anyone.

    Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob 
    on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get 
    out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? ...Voice or no 
    voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the
    leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being 
    attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and 
    exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

    ― Herman Goering

Many think that you can make the masses eager to kill.

Additionally, the effects of the anonymity that mobs naturally provide even without the influence of leadership should not be ignored.

I love anonymity, I really do. I think the ability to have it is vital in any free society. Even so, I cannot deny that it has its downsides, and lowering social inhibitions is one of the more serious ones.

But what do the nazis and the [x] have in common that we dont here? isn't the answer they had dictatorial/failed states? You can counter-example us southern lychings but that seems to be the exception that proves the rule. the demos in western democracies is not the mob of the [x] street.

[edit: subject is mob violence leading to murder, etc]

Mob mentality can be seen in things as minor as riots over football matches.

It is one of many aspects that can contribute to violence in situations like these. I wouldn't say it is even a primary cause of the violence in this particular case, but I would say it plays a role.

You're getting into dangerously ignorant territory with those words, and you haven't even done your research. Stop. That has no place here.

The protest, by some accounts, was for the most part not violent. The violence that did happen was a planned and targeted action perpetrated by a highly trained militia exploiting the cover of the protests.

Reinforcements were delayed intentionally, and the second attack clearly accounted for the contingency of a saferoom escape by smoking them out. Indeed, several hours before the attack occurred, it's possible that the area was being scoped out, and pictures taken.

Furthermore, the group that is apparently responsible has been identified, and is being pursued.

If you want to know more, the middle-eastern thread at SomethingAwful is tracking developments.

I'm not sure why the parent is being downvoted, but it's consistent with the intelligence that's been released.

weird that this is greyed out, since it seems to match all the source my fb friends and i have found:

http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/09/13/libya-attacks-a-wake-up-...

http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/romney-jumps-the-shark-libya...

http://www.libyaherald.com/?p=14332

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/0912/Libya-attack-...

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/09/libya-fast-team/

You're talking about 1 small part, of a much larger picture. The protests are still going on strong and spreading, and while they might have been started by 1 specific covert agenda, they are now being driven by anti-American and anti-Western sentiment, which appears to be deep seated.

While there is plenty of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East, and it relates to protests, I'm not sure that has so much to do with the destruction of the embassy and the murder of the Libyans and Americans there.

I don't think that the President being seen to support deliberate antagonism of deep religious prejudices (by parties interested in more and worse war) will help.

You don't see the President publicly supporting strident anti-semitism or holocaust denialism or racism or eugenics, either - though those are taboos for western society more than for predominantly Muslim societies; consider how much Ahmedinejad's casual holocaust denial has done to maintain anger about Iran in the West.

> It's completely unreasonable to ask the American people to throw out parts of the Constitution to try to appease clearly incompatible religious and juvenile groups half a world away.

This is crazy hyperbole. Can you please explain how the Administration's request (not demand) to take down the video is even remotely similar to your description?

That's how the government has been phrasing it so far in their responses...

The first sentence of which has been that the "Innocence of Muslims" video is some type of an abomination (rather than a silly movie), and we should all try not to offend Islam.

Then they end that paragraph with "...but wait, almost forgot, we don't condone the violence either.".

And CNN is doing the same thing with their reporting... Constantly blaming or interjecting the video; one step away from suggesting that the "protesters" are the real victims here.

It's clear there is going to be some type of a discussion about freedom of speech soon and that we Americans have too much of it. That, and the maker of the movie will most likely face prosecution.

Yes, everyone should try to not offend people. I think that much is obvious. There also, obviously, shouldn't be legal consequences for offending someone.

It seems to me like the protests are mostly peaceful – and as such, there is nothing wrong with them and freedom of speech really has nothing to do with them.

You know how as a kid, you were taught "don't believe everything you see on TV"?

Context is important. Video clips rarely tell the full story.

So you're agreeing with me, since the talking heads on TV have been telling us all that the "innocence of muslims" video is responsible for all this.

"It was just a request"

And one that not only shouldn't have been made, but one that shouldn't even of crossed the mind of anyone in the White House. The oath is to protect the Constitution.

The video is not the cause of the deaths. The actions of people who made personal decisions to be murderous killed people. The world would be a better place if we started blaming people instead of some stimulus or tool.

"The oath is to protect the Constitution."

Are you insinuating they've violated the Constitution somehow?

I am saying that the White House tried to interfere with someone's 1st Amendment rights which is not in keeping with the oath to the defend the US Constitution.

The 1st amendment starts: "Congress shall pass no law..."

How did the White House try to interfere with anyone's 1st amendment rights? Did the White House encourage Congress to pass a law banning the movie? No? In that case they didn't do anything against their oath.

"1st amendment rights" do not mean what you think they mean.

This is deflective. You can interfere with free speech by the way laws are enforced, which is the role of the Executive. You can also create a hostile, retaliatory regulatory environment, or etc. So, while this point of protocol is apprexiatied its neither full enough nor central enough to the actual situation to be an effective argument.

001sky is right and to go further, having the White House ask you publicly to do something is very much an intimidation particularly when they can make the operation of your business difficult if you refuse.

They asked Google to check if the video violated YT's terms of service. That is much different than what you are insinuating.

No it isn't any different. It is very much like someone coming to your business and saying "Nice business you have here, shame if anything were to happen to it..."

When it comes to the 1st amendment, Congress "shall pass no law" and the White House is the enforcement branch. They should, under no circumstances, say anything that could lead to censorship of something that isn't against the law.

Also, I'm not "insinuating" anything, I am directly saying it.

There is no 1st Amendment right to have your content hosted on YouTube. YouTube is a private, commercial venture that can remove your content for any reasons at any time. In fact, to say that YouTube must show all content and not remove any content and otherwise people's 1st Amendment rights are "interfered with" - would ironically take away the very basic right of YouTube to do as it deems fit in its own domain, YouTube itself.

YouTube is free to remove content, and others are free to ask YouTube to do so. To say otherwise is to limit their freedom.

You tube has 1st amendment to do what they want is the point, they are interferering via pr and public peer pressure. Why is it not like hosni mubarik asking twitter to please STFU during arab spring?

If I remember correctly, Mubarak shut down the entire internet in Egypt during the uprising there. That's different than politely asking a single privately-owned website to please remove some stuff.

Not really. sort of proves the point. intention not polite.

And...look at this, what 48 hours later?

"One of the men behind an anti-Muslim film was taken in for questioning by federal probation authorities."

-- New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/world/middleeast/man-linke...

"YouTube is free to remove content, and others are free to ask YouTube to do so. To say otherwise is to limit their freedom."

YouTube is free to listen to anyone, but the executive branch of the government should not be the one asking. If it is illegal or top secret content, then fine and dandy, there are rules for that. Otherwise, it is an attempt to intimidate YouTube and squelch their 1st amendment rights.

I'm not sure how this was intimidation? It was a request, and YouTube declined it. That proves that YouTube's is free to act as it chooses. (YouTube could also have decided to remove it, regardless of the request to remove it, and that would be within YouTube's rights as well - and not contrary to the video poster's rights.)

> Obama's civilian employees

A strange way to put it. One of USA's civilian employees was killed.

I'm more concerned by this:

>U.S. authorities said on Friday that they were investigating whether the film's producer, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a 55-year old Egyptian Coptic Christian living in Southern California, had violated terms of his prison release. Basseley was convicted in 2010 for bank fraud and released from prison on probation last June.

This sets a bad precedence. "If you create something that we disagree with, you will be investigated". With the ever expanding number of laws we have in this country -- we are all, most certainly, guilty of something.

ostensibly because of this video

And actually because of policy, hence the "request".

He wasn't killed because of the video. He was killed because he was representing the US, aka Big Satan. It amazes me how anybody watching the news for last 20 or so years can still talk about it being about specific video or cartoon or poem or whatever and if only it wasn't there everything would be peachy. It wouldn't.

And it wasn't "just a request". It was a request from US government - the body created to represent all US citizens and protect their rights, including free speech, which is in the First Amendment of US constitution. When Obama is a private citizen again, then his requests will be close to "just a request". Now, nothing he says or does is "just a" - it's always "US president's".

>And it wasn't "just a request". It was a request from US government

Which, unless there's some force of law or promise of reprisal behind it, is still "just a request".

No it is not. There is a difference between random person asking you something and US president asking you something, even if you won't be immediately jailed if you refuse. US president has an elevated stature given to him by the fact he is elected by American people as their ultimate representative, and he (and his administration) also has vast powers to benefit and hurt individuals and companies beyond direct imprisonment or other direct violent actions. Pretending not to know this does not benefit your argument but rather betrays ignorance, real or feigned.

>Pretending not to know this does not benefit your argument but rather betrays ignorance, real or feigned.

If you're going to insult me, spit it out already.

Humor me. What possible negative action will the US government take against Google for their refusal to take down a video?

Be less sympathetic to their lobbying efforts, for example.

Google spends almost 10M per year on lobbying: http://allthingsd.com/20120123/googles-2011-lobbying-expense... obviously there are many areas where good relationships with the govt are important. If they piss off wrong people, then part of these 10M will be wasted, since they won't listen to what Google has to say.

So the problem is some nebulous undefined possible fear of reprisal (note that I specifically excluded that above..), not the fact that a request was made in the first place.

Sorry but you don't get to extrapolate that far.

Facts: WH asked Google to see if a video violated their ToS.

Google said it did not.

That's all. Anything else is conjecture.

No, the problem is that the request was made by the government. If you choose to deliberately ignore vast powers that federal government has, and by which company of Google's size can be directly influenced, you are free to do so, but as I said, it just betrays ignorance, feigned or genuine. That does not change the fact that these powers exist, and the fact that these powers give every request coming from the government special weight compared to a request by ordinary citizen.

>That does not change the fact that these powers exist

And it doesn't change the fact that there is no evidence that is about to happen. Having the power to do something and doing it are two different things.

Your argument would be more compelling had not the Muslim world also went crazy over a certain cartoon. Unless you're suggesting the Dutch are also the Great Satan.

And no offense, the US government makes quite literally, thousands of requests to private companies every year and always have. It isn't more threatening because it is the White House instead of the FBI or State Department. Clearly Google had no problem ignoring it.

There's always something to go crazy about. In the same vain, UK and Germany embassies are under attack, though they had absolutely nothing connecting them to the film:

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/14/witnesses-police-fire-o...

But if not film, there's always something more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7121025.stm Teddy bear named Muhammed - riot!

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-132513576.html False accusation of Koran desecration - riot!

http://hotair.com/archives/2007/06/22/rushdie-update-its-fri... Rushdie knighted - outrage!

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2008/02/seething-musli... Snack may have traces of alcohol - outrage!

http://mosquewatch.blogspot.com/2008/02/wikipedia-refuses-to... Wikipedia pubishes fotos of 14-th century relics - offense!

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1576554/posts Valentine's day - violent protest!

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/2006/03/01/77857/Police-f... Playing cards - violence!

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/national_worl... Watching soccer? Death to you!

There's always something, and pretending it is always only the immediate excuse for violent outrage does not make much sense. The Satan here is everybody that does not conform to their very narrow, very fundamentalist, very oppressive medieval version of Islam. The reason-du-jour will be different, the cause is always the same - you should not behave in ways they do not approve, and if you do - they are justified to violently suppress you, or at least hurt somebody they associate with you.

Praytell, how does a video operate a firearm? Should we now blame rape victims for inciting their rapists?

I don't understand this request. Doesn't this lead to every organization having a case for pulling down any video they deem to be in violation of bad taste.

The white house has a beautiful 250 year old document they can get behind that makes the issue black and white (free speech) and absolves them of looking like they played favorites to either side. How is this publicly sterilizing solution the best option?

It was not a legally binding request, they just asked them to review the video for violations of their terms of service, and "please" remove it if it was found to be in violation. Any other organization is and has always been free to do the same, just as Google is free to decline the request.

Nobody said they weren't "free" to do it. The point is that the message it sends is that they are anxious about the availability of the video, and the implication is that they would prefer that it be removed.

"Nobody said they weren't "free" to do it."

You and a host of other people have brought up the Constitution as if it had any relevance here.

"The point is that the message it sends is that they are anxious about the availability of the video"

We can argue messages all day. One message it might send is a signal to muslim audiences of disapproval for the video. If that makes local governments do more to contain potentially explosive riots maybe a tiny request like that is worth it even if YT keeps the video up.

"the implication is that they would prefer that it be removed."

I'm sure they would tell you straight up that they'd prefer YT to remove it. The implication you're making is that there's something improper in their wanting YT to remove it.

People don't like that the organisation purporting to represent them, based on a document that exalts free speech, is inhibiting it in any way.

"We can argue messages all day" is a lame point.

I'm very pro free speech, but I actually wouldn't mind if the video went down for a couple of days ("under review") while security at embassies was improved, and for time for the mobs to settle down a bit. I would absolutely be against pulling it, but delaying or putting it in context wouldn't hinder free speech and would potentially save lives.

I'd also like to see Google run a clickthrough redirect preroll or ads on the page explaining that they don't support the content, it doesn't represent Google or the US, but that free speech is valued. Google did something similar with an anti-Jewish/Nazi googlebombing of "Jew" in search results (http://www.google.com/explanation.html)

"I'm very pro free speech, but...."

Let's expand on your thought process a bit....how about we just suppress all video that criticizes Islamic sensibilities just on the anniversary of 9/11? Well and maybe through Ramadan too. Just temporarily of course. Until "they" settle down and we get our security stuff straightened out.

Yeah, that's what the framers of the Constitution thought when the wrote the FIRST Amendment.

No, I meant that Google would be within their rights as a private company (who is doing business in Egypt, etc.) to pause a video for a few days. The government wouldn't be the one compelling this.

The government not restricting free speech doesn't mean private companies are compelled to rebroadcast, republish, and distribute anything.

Google already has a Terms of Service and felt that this video did not violate it. A position the Obama administration disagreed with. Ultimately, I'm glad that they had a broader view of free speech than the current Administration.

And for the record, delaying or shifting speech is "hindering" it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com