Sunday, September 23, 2012

Google's Anti-Islam Video Censorship

Forbes called this a "A Well-Meaning Mistake".
Its hard to build a line between responsibility and censorship.
The decision to block access on YouTube to an inflammatory movie trailer in countries where it has already incited deadly riots was obviously made with the best of intentions. It’s hard to fault anyone for prioritizing actual human lives above abstract principles, even principles as important as freedom of speech and the free flow of information.

A scene from "Innocence of Muslims."
Under other circumstances,
the badness of this green-screen technology would be pretty funny
First of all Google,Twitter,Facebook,YouTube and other social medias don't come with  proper terms and regulations.
It's easy to change the rules according to time,but its hard to maintain consistency across.
I would blame the social media for the death of the US brand ambassador in Libya and then the violence across all other parts of the this world.

Religious sentiments have to be taken care. We still live in the world where Ram, Jesus, Allah lives in our heart. 
I would suggest Social medias to have a strict t&c/censorship for all the religious posts/Videos/Pictures. Its hard but that doesn't mean it's not achievable.
Do check how many anti-Hindu organization pages still exists in Facebook.
Is Social media not blamed for the Assam riots that occurred recently.

I’m pretty sure they didn't do the right thing. The problem is that for Social media's calculation to work, its actions need to be effective in dampening the violence. So far that hasn't happened, and no wonder. More often than not, banning a piece of political speech is the surest way to amplify its power, especially when it’s speech that lacks much intrinsic power of its own.

I think the reason this is a potential source for concern is that Google, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms are subject to pressure from would-be censors all the time in the forms of governments and corporations. Having clear principles they consistently abide by is the best defense against that sort of pressure

~~Prakhyath Rai N
prakhyathrais.blogspot.com

2 comments:

  1. very thought provoking indeed. Its too bad we think that the people need to know in the news out weighs the rights of others. Instead of hating the person who made the video, they hate all Americans. Instead of us being angry at the people who carried out 9/11 we hate a whole nation. something is very wrong with that way of thinking.

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  2. Thanks for your thought provoking contribution, Prakhyath Rai N. Views from the "other side of the world" are always welcome and important to me (and to our mostly American readers too, I hope)!

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