[353] in Privacy_Forum
[ PRIVACY Forum ] Confused Senator Lieberman Demands Google Stop
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (privacy@vortex.com)
Mon May 19 22:35:16 2008
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Date: Mon, 19 May 2008 19:15:23 -0700
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Confused Senator Lieberman Demands Google Stop "Aiding" Terrorists
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000387.html
Greetings. Senator Joseph Lieberman (aka Senator John McCain's
"error-correcting" shadow) has joined the "blame it all on Google
club" -- with demands that Google more effectively remove (or
preemptively block?) al-Qaida and other terrorist-related videos
from YouTube ( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24713927 ).
Google already pulls down videos after they're flagged by users for
violating YouTube's violence or other relevant guidelines, but
Lieberman seemingly wants Google to remove the videos on a more
technically proactive basis. It should be easy he says, since the
videos are already usually "branded" with the terrorist
organizations' logos.
Interesting idea Senator -- but it won't fly. Prescreening the vast
numbers of videos uploaded daily to YouTube is of course utterly
impractical and unreasonable. True, Google now has a system in
place to prevent certain (mostly relatively high-profile)
copyrighted videos from appearing on YouTube, but this assumes the
cooperation of the copyright holders who *want* to keep their
materials off of YouTube.
The increasingly technically sophisticated producers and uploaders
of terrorist videos presumably don't fall into that category.
If Google went through the time and effort to build a system to
detect "Terrorist ID Bugs" (uh, "TIBs"), how much time do you think
would elapse before such logos were no longer present in the
produced materials, or simply cropped, replaced, or blotted out
prior to YouTube uploading, specifically to thwart such detection
systems? This could all be trivially accomplished using cheap and
ubiquitous video editing tools. And by the way, in case you hadn't
noticed, YouTube isn't the only fish in the sea when it comes to
venues for Internet video distribution, either.
C'mon Senator, do you really think that the guys behind those
horrific productions are idiots? They're not, you know. In the
Internet age, censorship of the sort that you appear to desire --
even for laudable motives -- is effectively impossible.
That's simply the reality, whether you or anyone else likes it or not.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
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