Request to Remove the Movie

According to a CNN summary of a Google report released earlier this year that did not specify the nature of requests to remove content from its servers, the number of censorship requests by the US government increased more than 700% during the latter half of 2011 compared to the beginning of that year. (This makes sense if you know that YouTube didn’t hit the Arabic nations until March 9, 2011.) The US government did request YouTube to remove the movie ‘Innocence of Muslims’ and the request was denied on September 14. The White House drew immediate criticism from several groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). Eva Galperin of the EFF called YouTube's potential removal of the video "an unusual move" since it would take place "without a valid court order." Once YouTube has made the decision to proactively censor its content, they start down a slippery slope that ends in YouTube Knows Best moral policing of every video on their site. Soon after, a Google representative said - We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions- This can be a challenge because what's OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere - This video which is widely available on the Web is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. The Afghan government didn’t wait for a response to the US’ request; it blocked access to YouTube altogether on September 12, 2012.

By September 14 the uprising over the movie had spread to at least 31 countries. Muslims demonstrated across Malaysia calling for the US to prevent distribution of the film they said was part of a plot by "Christian extremists." Cabinet ministers demanded the film be taken offline and condemned YouTube for being "insensitive" and "oblivious to the tumult it has caused." On September 16 Google said the film now deviated from the site's community guidelines that encourage free speech but not hate speech. "When videos breach those rules, we remove them…Where we have launched YouTube locally and we are notified that a video is illegal in that country, we will restrict access to it after a thorough review." Google said it was restricting the clip to comply with local law rather than a response to political pressure. A Google spokesman said "We've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia, as well as in Libya and Egypt, given the very sensitive situations in these 2 countries…This approach is entirely consistent with principles we first laid out in 2007." I found this to be a complete turnaround from its previous denial.