Doesn't it look like YouTube, in fact, is removing such perspectives from its site? YouTube is entitled to do just that, of course. But it's operators should have the guts to cop to it.

I find it amusing that she claims that she is persecuted by a private company that she deems stooges for

members of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage.

Now, does that description remind you of anyone?

I see that Google is offering big bucks for YouTube. The YouTube management should fit right in at Google, with their gooey faux environmentalism and progressive transnationalism (for a buck mind you).

Yep Malkin is a pathetic whiner at times but is usually right about MSM omissions, commissions, and emissions!

"Army of Davids" is somehow the wrong expression in this case...

I believe the point of the Times blog is not hypocrisy, but rather that the fact that Youtube accepts the video disproves the video's thesis.

Er, no it doesn't -- and the video still might be banned.

A bunch of liberal bloggers and their readers were identifying political videos they disagreed with and getting them removed by mass-flagging. I'm really astounded that people are attacking Malkin for bitching about this; what these would-be censors did was spectacularly lame, and YouTube should have known better. This flagging problem's well-known and has happened many times before on dozens of sites.

There really aren't enough clear facts to say why YouTube yanked her videos. But it is not unreasonable to conjecture that YouTube acted according to some weak kneed algorithmic policy, as distinct from thorough review of the material and the complaint(s).

This would be not unlike widespread practice among providers of public access posting facilities.

For example, there has been a spate of ISPs yanking the files of paying customers based on bogus DMCA subpoenas and complaints of copyright infringement. And we all know of at least one religious organization, whose name I'll not mention, that makes filing lawsuits for copyright infringement a sacrament.

One systemic weakness inherent in providing any public posting service is the provider's potential need for an army of lawyers to deal with complaints generated by some army of David's evil twins.

Even Volokh Conspiracy's proprietors occasionally have to take a break from sipping you-know-who's blended puppy smoothies and leave their sekrit hideout to spend precious time removing spammentary material that slips into these comment threads. Imagine the personnel required at YouTube to deal with what could be fairly characterized as as a DOS attack by jihadi complaint spammers.

That's why I would attribute the incident to human error or simple minded algorithmic policy in the face of jihadi spammed complaints rather than to bad intentions on the part of YouTube -- at least without some good evidence to the contrary.

Fub is right, although I'm not sure it's an algorithmic policy as opposed to a simple "X number of complaints and you're out" policy. Craigslist apparently follows that sort of policy, and it has resulted in increasing reports of advertising being removed after what appear to be illegitimate complaints by competitors (complaints are anonymous and require no specification of reasons, just clicking a complaint tag).

This practice endangers the usefulness of these services, because it results in a tit-for-tat war on any politically/socially charged topics or financial benefit issues that can result in nothing remaining.

Nick

Malkin's complaint began when YouTube informed her that her "First, they came" video was inappropriate - and refused to tell her why it reached that conclusion. YouTube can publish whatever it wants, but it has an obligation to inform potential customers of its publishing guidelines.

It is also obligated to apply those standards fairly. Suspicion is that Malkin's video was flagged due to its criticism of Islam. Riding Sun found on YouTube three "viciously anti-Israel propaganda videos," two of which YouTube has since removed, one probably due to copyright violations and one "raising the possibility that hordes of LGF's 'lizardoid minions' flagged it as offensive."

Riding Sun sees YouTube's publication of offensive videos as a public service:

I want these videos to be widely available, so people can see just how deranged and hate-filled Israel's opponents can be. A tit-for-tat censorship battle only leaves all of us less informed.