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[ NNSquad ] Re: Pakistan access to YouTube restored after "blasphemous"vid removed


Other than the mistake to announce the YouTube address space at a lower
metric, the problem is?  You have to make sure you are describing them
correctly.  Whether one personally labels them as religious zealots or not,
everyone has to agree based on the article that the order came down from a
legitimate government body enforcing their laws or regulations on their own
people or companies.  The company made a mistake when implementing the
block.  That's unfortunate.  Google/YouTube may have made the decision to
comply with the laws or regulations of Pakistan in order to continue to do
business there, that's their prerogative.

You may not agree with their beliefs and call them zealots, but you have to
admit their right to self government.  You may not believe that they are
self-governed, and are instead living under a dictatorship, theocracy, or
some other type of government that you believe is less ideal than your own.
The fix for that is not net neutrality, but rather various steps that your
government can take to change the government in other countries.  This can
be anything from a message of strong disapproval by your government
officials, to sanctions on particular items, to a total embargo, to an
invasion.  Personally, I don't think this type of censorship is worth any
response.  Not any more than I think it would be inappropriate for other
governments to protest against our (USA) censorship of child pornography.

It would have been appropriate for some sanctions, such as blocking that
route from Pakistan, if the matter wasn't rectified, but it was.

Fred Reimer


-----Original Message-----
From: nnsquad-bounces+freimer=ctiusa.com@nnsquad.org
[mailto:nnsquad-bounces+freimer=ctiusa.com@nnsquad.org] On Behalf Of Lauren
Weinstein
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 2:40 PM
To: nnsquad@nnsquad.org
Cc: lauren@vortex.com
Subject: [ NNSquad ] Pakistan access to YouTube restored after
"blasphemous"vid removed

Greetings.  Reportedly Google buckled on this one.  It seems that
to get videos removed from YouTube you don't need to be a rights
holder -- being a religious zealot will suffice.  But specific
religions and images aside, and given that "blasphemy" is in the
mind of the beholder, these sorts of actions seem quite risky on
Google's part, and would seem to open the door to exactly the sort
of ongoing hands-on, value-based, micromanaged content control that
I've been led to believe was what Google sincerely wished to avoid.  

We know that DMCA orders will pull videos, but exactly how much
blasphemy is required to zap vids that offend you, but to which you
have no rights?

Anyway, here's the story, including comment on the ramifications of
the associated routing fiasco:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hhJjQR54kRIJrZR6Cz3EAjYHnivAD8V217300

--Lauren--
NNSquad Moderator





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