YouTube's Role at Issue Over Video that Incited Mideast Violence Dawn C. Chmielewski - Los Angeles Times
go to original September 14, 2012

This is the video, "Innocence of Muslims," that mocks and insults the Prophet Muhammad caused demonstrators to attack a U.S. consulate in Libya, killing one American, and breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. All rights to Sam Becile.

Internet video giant YouTube has found itself drawn into a global drama being played out in violent Mideast protests over a 14-minute video trailer for "Innocence of Muslims," raising questions about the website's responsibilities as the Internet's preeminent distributor of video.

The trailer has been blamed for inciting violence in Libya, Egypt and Yemen. Obama administration officials said Thursday that they have asked YouTube to review the video and determine whether it violates the site's terms of service, according to people close to the situation but not authorized to comment.

Some media observers predict that the incident will prompt calls for Google Inc.'s YouTube to play a more active role in curating the billions of hours of videos found on its site. One prominent 1st Amendment lawyer even suggested that YouTube should seek a judge's ruling about whether to remove potentially incendiary content.

Other digital media experts, however, cited the technical limitations of scouring the torrent of videos that are uploaded to the site every minute and making value judgments about those likely to incite anger, hate or murder.

"We keep making that mistake that technology is just neutral," said Ken Doctor, a longtime newspaper industry analyst. "But it can be cynically used. There are forces of darkness in the world that will rapidly use them, as well as forces for good."

Read more at The Los Angeles Times

dawn.chmielewski@latimes.com

We invite you to add your charity or supporting organizations' news stories and coming events to PVAngels so we can share them with the world. Do it now!