Forbes Praises YouTube Censoring Steven Sotloff Beheading Video

from the getting-it-wrong dept

Following the horrific actions of ISIS/ISIL, in which the group beheaded American journalist James Foley and plastered the video in online forums like Twitter and YouTube, I argued that it is important that the American Public be given the chance to repudiate the aim of the video: paralyzing us with fear. Adding to that thought, Glenn Greenwald argued that the reason one must fight against censorship in the most egregious of speech cases is that such cases are often where the limitation of speech is legitimized. While this may not be a First Amendment consideration, since those sites are not affiliated with the government, it would be a mistake to suggest that free speech is limited as a concept to that narrow legal definition. Free and open speech is an ideal, one that is codified into law in some places, and one which enjoys a more relaxed but important status within societal norms.

I can only assume it's a lack of understanding in both arguments above that has led one Forbes writer to rush to praise YouTube for taking down the latest ISIS/ISIL video. You've almost certainly heard that another American has been beheaded at the hands of civilization's enemy, yet you'll have a much harder time finding the video of Steven Sotloff's death on YouTube this time around. Jeff Bercovici suggests this is a good thing.

With 100 hours of new footage uploaded every minute, YouTube says it doesn’t, and couldn’t, prescreen content, relying on users to flag violations. In this case, its monitors were, unfortunately, expecting the Sotloff video to be posted after weeks of threats by his captors and a widely circulated video plea by his mother to spare his life. That readiness allowed them to remove the video and shut down the account that posted it within hours.

This is how you get an American public uninformed about the brutality of groups like ISIS/ISIL. It's how you legitimize terror groups who themselves wish to impose limitations on the types of things the people under their rule are allowed to see and do. It's the start of how the American public is refused the opportunity to witness the full story. And that last part is especially egregious in a time and place where images rule the news cycle. Here the public is, inundated with the story of an American journalist being murdered at the hands of a group that considers that public a target for violence, and the public isn't even given the opportunity to see the images at hand.

This, of course, isn't to argue that people should be forced to watch the brutality. But, as I argued before, denying the American people the opportunity to disabuse ISIS/ISIL of the notion that they can scare us into inaction is something we shouldn't stand for. YouTube can do this, but they shouldn't, and they certainly shouldn't be praised for it.

YouTube, on the other hand, has given itself more latitude to make judgement calls by basing its policies on common sense rather than First Amendment absolutism...For tech companies to embrace the principle of free expression is laudable — but they should also leave themselves the maneuverability to deal with bad actors who care nothing for that or any other civilized value.

This misunderstands the most important value of free speech: allowing the evil in the world to identify itself. Once we start down the road of disappearing the speech we deem to not have any value, you open the door for alternative interpretations of the value on a whole host of other speech. Censoring the bad actors doesn't make them go away, it only refuses to shine the public light on them. It keeps people from being able to confront the horrible reality that exists and the group that wants to do us harm. That can't be allowed to continue.

Filed Under: censorship, companies, free speech, isis, james foley, jeff bercovici, steven sotloff, youtube
Companies: google, youtube

Is It Torture Now? ISIS Apparently A Fan Of CIA's Waterboarding Techniques

from the what-moral-high-ground? dept

Among the many, many, many problems with running a torture program (beyond being morally problematic and with no history of effectiveness) is the fact that it makes it easier for others to justify torture programs as well. It's now come out that ISIS has been waterboarding prisoners, including reporter James Foley whom they recently beheaded. Waterboarding, of course, was one of the CIA's favorite torture techniques. And, of course, people had warned for years that having the CIA waterboard people would only encourage others to use the technique against Americans. Hell, even Senator Dianne Feinstein condemned waterboarding a few years ago, because it would lead others to do it against the US:

Waterboarding dates to the Spanish Inquisition and has been a favorite of dictators through the ages, including Pol Pot and the regime in Burma. Its practice is designed to nearly drown a subject and make them think they're going to die.

Torture - including waterboarding - is immoral and illegal. It violates U.S. and international law and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering. Condoning torture opens the door for our enemies to do the same to captured American troops in the future.

Of course, beheading people is even worse that waterboarding them, and that seems to be the "defense" that administration officials are using to downplay the discovery of ISIS waterboarding techniques. "Hey, at least it's not as bad as beheading" is hardly a compelling response to finding out that ISIS is using CIA and DOJ-approved torture techniques.

The FBI, which is investigating Foley’s death and the abduction of Americans in Syria, declined to comment. The CIA had no official comment.

“ISIL is a group that routinely crucifies and beheads people,” a U.S. official, using one of the acronyms for the militant group. “To suggest that there is any correlation between ISIL’s brutality and past U.S. actions is ridiculous and feeds into their twisted propaganda.”

Yes, it's true that ISIS seems to have little concern about what techniques it's using, but to argue that the CIA's prolific use of torture and waterboarding has had no impact on how groups treat captured Americans seems like a stretch. At the very least, it takes away any chance of a moral high ground to argue about the specific techniques being used, and at worst contributes to the reasons why these groups feel justified in what they're doing.

Filed Under: cia, isil, isis, james foley, torture, waterboarding

Can We Create A Public Internet Space Where The First Amendment, Not Private Terms Of Service, Rules?

from the that-would-be-nice dept

Over a year ago, Tim Karr had an interesting and important post about openness on the internet. While much of it, quite reasonably, focuses on authoritarian governments trying to stomp out dissent online, he makes an important point towards the end about how the fact that content online is ruled by various "terms of service" from different private entities, rather than things like the First Amendment, can raise serious concerns:

And the threat isn't entirely at the hands of governments. In last week's New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen reported on a cadre of twentysomething "Deciders" employed by Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to determine what content is appropriate for those platforms -- and what content should get blocked.

While they seem earnest in their regard for free speech, they often make decisions on issues that are way beyond their depth, affecting people in parts of the world they've never been to.

And they're often just plain wrong, as Facebook demonstrated last week. They blocked a political ad from progressive group CREDO Action that criticized Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's support of the Keystone XL pipeline.

This case is just one of several instances where allegedly well-intentioned social media companies cross the line that separates Internet freedom from Internet repression.

And it actually goes beyond that to some extent. As well-intentioned as these companies might be, the example above shows that they'll cave on issues all the time.

"Hosting your political movement on YouTube is a little like trying to hold a rally in a shopping mall. It looks like a public space, but it's not -- it's a private space," writes Ethan Zuckerman of MIT's Center for Civic Media. "And your use of it is governed by an agreement that works harder to protect YouTube's fiscal viability than to protect your rights of free speech."

Zuckerman compares the social media executives to "benevolent despots" who use their corporate terms of service -- not the First Amendment -- to govern their decision making about content.

In many ways, it may be even more complicated than Karr and the people he quotes describe. First off, even if you have a company that claims it will respect a right to free expression, it's not their decision alone to make. As we saw, for example, with Wikileaks, when there's strong pressure to silence a site, the downstream providers can get antsy and pull the plug. Upstream hosting firms, data centers and bandwidth providers can all be pressured or even threatened legally, and usually someone somewhere along the line will cave to such threats. In such cases, it doesn't matter how strongly the end service provider believes in free speech; if someone else along the chain can pull things down, then promises of supporting free speech are meaningless.

The other issue is that most sites are pretty much legally compelled to have such terms of use, which provide them greater flexibility in deciding to stifle forms of speech they don't appreciate. In many ways, you have to respect the way the First Amendment is structured so that, even if courts have conveniently chipped away at parts of it at times (while, at other times making it much stronger), there's a clear pillar that all of this is based around. Terms of service are nothing like the Constitution, and can be both inherently wishy-washy and ever-changeable as circumstances warrant.

This issue keeps coming up. A few months ago, Jillian York wrote a powerful piece about how we run a risk in treating private social media spaces as if they're public:

The trouble with private companies controlling our speech is that they are subject not only to shareholders, but also to governments. Many of the most popular social media companies – most notably Twitter, which once called itself “the free speech wing of the free speech party” – profess a commitment to free expression. But in their efforts to provide access to their services to users around the world, these companies often face an unfortunate choice: to avoid being blocked by a government’s censorship apparatus, they must sometimes agree to take down content, at least in a given country.

[....]

In any case, when a company unnecessarily complies with censorship orders from a foreign government, it sends the message to users that profit is more important than free speech, something that all of the aforementioned companies count amongst their values. Furthermore, by making the company – and not the government issuing the orders – the “bad guy,” it becomes harder for users within a country to fight back, and less clear to users that the governments seeking censorship are the real enemy.

And now this issue is coming up again in a slightly different context, with the decision of various social platforms this week to block the video of James Foley (or even linking to it). Glenn Greenwald has now chimed in on the subject as well, and makes the key point about how, even if you understand the reasons for why these companies chose to do it (and, it might not even be "valuing profit over free speech"), it creates a real challenge for free speech when someone (anyone) gets to decide what is and what is not allowed:

Given the savagery of the Foley video, it’s easy in isolation to cheer for its banning on Twitter. But that’s always how censorship functions: it invariably starts with the suppression of viewpoints which are so widely hated that the emotional response they produce drowns out any consideration of the principle being endorsed.

It’s tempting to support criminalization of, say, racist views as long as one focuses on one’s contempt for those views and ignores the serious dangers of vesting the state with the general power to create lists of prohibited ideas. That’s why free speech defenders such as the ACLU so often represent and defend racists and others with heinous views in free speech cases: because that’s where free speech erosions become legitimized in the first instance when endorsed or acquiesced to.

The question posed by Twitter’s announcement is not whether you think it’s a good idea for people to see the Foley video. Instead, the relevant question is whether you want Twitter, Facebook and Google executives exercising vast power over what can be seen and read.

Given all of this, it seems like it would be good to have some sort of even safer "public space" online. Karr, in his piece from last year, suggests that companies that want to be supporters of an open internet be much more transparent about their moderating decisions, allowing for public review:

To be more accountable to users, these platforms should adopt publicly transparent processes allowing a full view of every decision to block content. And these sites should invite feedback from users as a check against abuses.

I like that idea, though I can see how it would be difficult to implement in practice. But, really, an even bigger question is how do we set up a space on the internet that isn't prone to such issues. I'd hate to think that it would need to be hidden away in the "dark web" like the infamous Silk Road market, but I'm not sure how else one would create such a truly safe harbor that is impervious to outside attempts to block.

York hopes that companies will "stand up" against such censorship requests, but it always seems like there's a weak link somewhere in the chain. It would be great if everyone agreed to protect the speech, but when complainants can go to ISPs asking for filters, to upstream providers, to server hosting companies, to domain registrars and more, you would need to build a top to bottom wall of organizations totally committed to free speech. I'm not sure that's possible.

And that leaves us with quite a conundrum if you're looking for a true venue for free speech online. It's almost technically not truly possible.

Filed Under: blocking, censorship, first amendment, free speech, james foley, terms of service, upstream providers

The James Foley Beheading Video And How Americans Conceptualize Their Enemies

from the sorry-ostriches dept

As Mike recently mentioned, there is a heated debate throughout the internet and the country over whether or not social media and content sharing sites like Facebook and YouTube should be actively taking down videos of American journalist James Foley being beheaded by ISIS/ISIL. The issue, which I've chosen to write about here before, is even more important and serious than perhaps it appears on the face for most people. Mathew Ingram's post dealt with many good aspects of the debate, some of which we'll discuss, but I think he leaves out a large part of the equation. More on that in a moment.

Let's start this off by reiterating that this is a subject that needs to be dealt with openly, honestly, and with the kind of seriousness the loss of a journalist to a group like ISIS/ISIL deserves. It is, in that context, incredibly easy to understand why family members of Foley, or his friends, might request the images and video of his death by beheading be removed.

It’s easy to understand why the victim’s family and friends wouldn’t want the video or screenshots circulating, just as the family of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl — who was beheaded on video by Al-Qaeda in 2002 — or businessman Nick Berg didn’t want their sons’ deaths broadcast across the internet. And it’s not surprising that many of those who knew Foley, including a number of journalists, would implore others not to share those images, especially since doing so could be seen as promoting (even involuntarily) the interests of ISIS.

No doubt. The actions taken in that video were as barbaric as can be imagined, glorifying the murder of a non-combatant strictly for being a kafir. An infidel. A non-believer. It takes a stone-heart to watch the video and not wince, cringe, cry. For those close to Foley, it must be agonizing.

It's also necessary.

After Ronan Farrow compared ISIS content to the radio broadcasts in Rwanda that many believe helped fuel a genocide in that country in the 1990s, sociologist Zeynep Tufekci argued that in some cases social platforms probably should remove violent content, because of the risk that distributing it will help fuel similar behavior. But others, including First Look Media’s Glenn Greenwald, said leaving those decisions up to corporations like Twitter or YouTube is the last thing that a free society should want to promote.

And Greenwald is right, in part because the entire concept of a platform like Twitter lends itself poorly to being policed by overseers, but also because we don't need hosts of user-generated content scrubbing the decks for us. Some will say that such despicable acts have no place on Twitter, but ISIS/ISIL has been posting videos to Twitter of beheadings of non-Americans for months without much outcry. Others might suggest that Twitter should actively police their users and disallow extremist groups from the platform entirely, but who gets to decide which group is too extremist to be heard from? And still others will claim that allowing the video to be seen gives ISIS/ISIL exactly what they want and moves their message into the public's eye when it might otherwise be hidden.

I say that's a good thing.

“I say to America that the Islamic Caliphate has been established,” Abu Mosa, a spokesman for the terror group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), told VICE Media in a video interview posted online Thursday. “Don’t be cowards and attack us with drones. Instead send your soldiers, the ones we humiliated in Iraq. We will humiliate them everywhere, God willing, and we will raise the flag of Allah in the White House,” he added.

Abu Mosa was featured in Vice Media's outstanding reporting from inside ISIS/ISIL. But the claim that they will raise their flag over the White House is only one half of the threat; the video of James Foley is how they intend to behave once they've done so. Now, will ISIS/ISIL ever actually achieve this? Likely not, of course, but that isn't the point. Whatever your opinions on the Middle East, on the War on Terror, on the Iraq War, whatever your politics, one must acknowledge that if America truly has any enemies in this world, and we do, then ISIS/ISIL must be counted amongst the most grave of those threats.

Think back to the year 2000 and ask yourself how much the average citizen knew about Al Qaeda. The answer should be "very little." So, when the attacks came, the most horrific the American public had ever seen, they came out of seemingly nowhere. Sure, people may have known the name "Osama bin-Laden", but they didn't know what his group was about in detailed form. They didn't know the history. They may not have been able to pick out Afghanistan on a globe.

If we're to avoid that history repeating itself, the American public should at least be granted the option of viewing material that highlights exactly who the enemy of secular freedom is and what they are about. Both are on display in the video of ISIS/ISIL beheading James Foley. If the actions of the barbarians in this world are of importance, and they are, then hiding them from the cowering masses does nothing to serve those masses. Does ISIS/ISIL want their video to be seen? Of course, because they think their actions will frighten us into inaction and retreat. It's important that the public not be denied the opportunity to disabuse them of that foolish notion. There is a battleground here and that reality must be dealt with on reality's terms. Burying our heads in the sand must not be an option.

James Foley went to the battleground in an attempt to give us a glimpse of the reality that is occurring there. It dishonors him to erect an opaque sheen of censorship before the price he paid.

Filed Under: beheadings, free speech, isis, james foley, videos

There's A Reasonable Debate To Be Had About Showing The James Foley Beheading Video, But Claiming Its Illegal To Watch Is Ridiculous

from the name-the-law dept

By now you've probably heard of the barbaric and tragic beheading of journalist James Foley by the extremist group ISIS. There's an ongoing debate happening as many people sought to have the video (and screenshots) removed from the internet. Twitter and YouTube are actively removing such things, and even shutting down some accounts of people who are sharing those links. Mathew Ingram has a fantastic discussion about whether or not it's the right thing for these companies to be removing those images and videos, and our own Tim Geigner has been weighing whether or not to write about the subject.

However, I wanted to do a quick post about this ridiculous claim from the Metropolitan police in London that it's a criminal act merely to view the video. I have no interest in seeing the video, but I think it's crazy that someone deciding they do want to see the video might face criminal charges over it.

The MPS Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) is investigating the contents of the video that was posted online in relation to the alleged murder of James Foley. We would like to remind the public that viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Terrorism legislation.

However, when reporters from Buzzfeed asked the UK government to elaborate, no one will say what law would actually be broken:

The Metropolitan police are unable to currently name the law that citizens could be arrested under for watching the video that depicts the beheading of photojournalist James Wright Foley, despite earlier releasing a statement that said any British nationals watching the video could be committing a criminal offence.

They did get a police spokesperson to say that they're not intending to pursue people for merely watching the video, but that "viewing it could be used as evidence as part of a wider investigation." That seems fairly questionable in many ways, even as we're used to UK officials stretching anti-terrorism laws in dangerous ways.

Filed Under: beheading, debate, isis, james foley, legality, metropolitan police, uk