Google reluctant to take down Islamic sites

If only they were as reluctant to delete anti-Islamic sites from their news feed

We read:

"The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today asked Google, the parent company of the popular online video-sharing site, YouTube, to "immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations" from YouTube and prevent similar content from reappearing. However, the company immediately refused to comply with his request.

Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) made the request in a letter to Eric Schmidt, the chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Google, in which he said that YouTube "unwittingly, permits Islamist terrorist groups to maintain an active, pervasive and amplified voice despite military setbacks or successful operations by the law enforcement and intelligence communities." ....

However, YouTube in a response this afternoon, said taking those actions was not so simple and refused to remove all videos mentioning or featuring these groups without consideration of whether the videos were legal, nonviolent or non-hate speech videos.

"While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view," the company said. "We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate, we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds."

The statement thanked Lieberman for alerting the company last week of several videos which violated the company's community guidelines and that have subsequently been removed. However, the statement said that "most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines."

YouTube's community guidelines prohibit hate speech and ask users not to post videos that show someone getting hurt, attacked or humiliated. According to the YouTube Community Guidelines, users can flag videos they feel are inappropriate, which may then be removed from the site by the company after review. ...

YouTube noted in its statement that hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to the site daily. "The government can't get involved in suppressing videos if the content is not illegal," Morris said, explaining that such a policy would likely face stiff opposition from advocates of First Amendment rights.

Source

The principles enunciated by Google are not really the question here. Leftists all say the same when sites that they favor are under challenge. It's the rubbery application of those principles that is the problem. Specifically, it is the failure to apply the same criteria to Islamic and anti-Islamic utterances that is the problem. It seems to be as hard to convict Islamic sites and posts of "hate speech" as it is easy to convict Christian sites and posts of "hate speech"