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Google at the center of international and domestic Internet censorship

martin_niemoller.jpgOn Capitol Hill today, Google officials presented suggestions on how American lawmakers can make the Internet more free. The solution to get regimes that censor information and, more importantly, the ads that run alongside it? Foreign aid, an ambassador and treaties, treaties, treaties! I'm a little skeptical Google will accomplish what Amnesty International's decades of work fighting free-speech abuses worldwide has not. Especially given our own dubious record when it comes to enforcing the First Amendment. Yesterday, Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) wrote an open letter to Google to pull down videos of "Islamist Extremist," which YouTube has now denied. First, they came for the Muslims, and I said nothing.

2:40 PM on Tue May 20 2008
By Jackson West
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  • Image of Jimmy the Saint Jimmy the Saint at 02:55 PM on 05/20/08
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    "Our own dubious record.."

    Come again? Ooooh, he sent a letter, which YouTube promptly roundfiled. Creeping fascism!

    The US actually takes a much more absolutist approach to the freedom of speech issues (and that's a good thing) when compared to other Western democracies, in which hate speech, for example, is typically illegal.

    Take the UK, which banned The Satanic Verses for a time and in which libel and slander lawsuits are routinely used to stifle criticism of public figures.

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