Sen. Lieberman attacks Youtube

On Monday, Sen. Lieberman forwarded a letter to Dr. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. In his letter, Sen. Lieberman requested that Google's video service, Youtube, remove several allegedly pro—al-Qaeda videos from their site. The Senator writes:

YouTube is being used to share videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. The purpose of this letter is to request that Google implement its own policy against this offensive material, remove these videos from YouTube, and prevent them from reappearing.

Google responds to Sen Lieberman:

Senator Lieberman's staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube's Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, we examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech. Most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines.

Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube -- even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos. While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds.

While preventing the spread of al-Quaeda indoctrination may be in the interest of the United States, it seems Sen. Lieberman has not read Youtube's posting guidelines — or the First Amendment to the Constitution. It appears Google is living up to their code of conduct, "Don't be evil," by standing up for free speech on the Internet.

In the future, should Sen. Lieberman remain concerned about videos advocating violence upon others, I would suggest the Senator argue for the removal of this video of himself arguing for a war with Iran.