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Archive for the ‘Glorification’ Category

Plug Pulled on Hamas’ YouTube Ripoff | Danger Room from Wired.com

By Noah Shachtman EmailOctober 15, 2008 | 4:44:00 PMCategories: Info War, T is for Terror

Aqsatube_grab1 A few weeks ago, Western intelligence officials discovered that the Palestinian jihadist group Hamas had set up a video-sharing site — to spread propaganda and to train would-be terrorists. Now, that radical Islamic answer to YouTube is offline. And jihadists are blaming the FBI for the takedown.

AqsaTube mimicked the mainstream video site in almost every way. Users could watch clips, and upload their own. Even the two logos were basically the same. ‘The Hamas site, however, is devoted entirely to propaganda and incitement,’ explained Israel’s Intelligence & Terrorism Information Center, or ITIC. Material included demonstrations of how to detonate explosives and fire weapons, speeches from Hamas and al-Qaeda leaderships, episodes from a popular Syrian TV drama and clips of kids in military uniforms — while a musician sings, ‘death is fame and victory.’

As we’ve noted before, today’s jihadists don’t just use the internet occasionally. ‘They don’t exist without the web,’ says Naval Postgraduate School professor John Arquilla. Everything from recruiting to training to propaganda is handled online.

AqsaTube also included Google ads, and links to al-Aqsa TV, Hamas’ television channel. However, Samir Abu Mahsen, head of production of al-Aqsa TV, tells the BBC that the video site ‘does not belong to al-Aqsa TV.’

This is the second time in a little more than a month that an extremist video distribution network has been taken offline. The al-Ekhlaas network of sites had long been a primary distributor of videos from al-Sahab, al-Qaida’s propaganda arm. Then, on Sept. 11, al-Ekhlaas.net was suddenly re-registered. All of its content vanished.

As in the case of the al-Ekhlaas takedown, militant forums blamed Western intelligence agencies for the unplugging of AqsaTube. But it appears a little sunlight may have done the trick, instead.

AqsaTube’s internet service provider was the French firm OVH. The company ‘initially denied hosting AqsaTube, according to the BBC, ‘but later confirmed that the website had been hosted by them and had now been taken offline.’

Flaws in YouTube gangster video vetting exposed - Times Online

From The Times, September 18, 2008: Flaws in YouTube gangster video vetting exposed

A Times investigation has exposed failures in the video-sharing website’s monitoring system and prompted action to tighten security

Marcus Leroux, Kaya Burgess and Fran Yeoman

YouTube, the world’s largest video-sharing website, this week removed over two dozen videos glorifying gangs and gang violence which had been on its website in some cases for over 18 months.

Following a Times investigation into harmful and inappropriate material on Youtube, the website took down 30 film clips, most shot in grainy video showing hooded youths brandishing illegal weapons such as machetes, hand guns and even sub-machine guns. Google admitted they were clearly in breach of its own user guidelines which had recently been revised to deal with gang videos.

Google’s Head of Communications in Britain, former Newsnight editor Peter Barron, said that as a result of concern about the use of the website by gangs, it had now introduced new guidelines prohibiting users from showing weapons in their videos in order to intimidate people, but that these had only “gone live” on Friday.

He blamed “teething problems” with the new policy for the fact that its own monitors had failed to removed the material after a Times reporter posing as an ordinary user had flagged them up as inappropriate three days after the new policy had been introduced.
(more…)

YouTube is introducing UK specific rules, and the Turkish media is furious that YouTube is not sensitive to Turkey’s sensitivities and concerns with regards to certain types of content available through YouTube. Other countries and governments will also start complaining following this new announcement. It is not easy to get the balance right with regards to what should be permissible or not but YouTube will be pressured to have more of these “customized community guidelines” for accessing its content.

[Note also The Guardian, YouTube bans violent videos, 12.09.2008]

YouTube bans videos which glamorise guns and knives | Technology | The Guardian

· UK-specific rules follow glorification claims
· Website refuses to change way content is checked

Owen Gibson, media correspondent, The Guardian, Thursday September 18 2008

The Google-owned video sharing website YouTube has moved to counter criticism that it helps fuel gang violence by introducing new rules to ban submissions that glamorise guns and knives.

The UK-specific rule will ban videos ’showing weapons with the aim of intimidation’ after criticism that fierce battles were being fuelled by rival members posting videos.

Last summer the Guardian revealed how videos on YouTube displayed the ‘barely concealed culture of violent gangs glorying in crime’ in the area of Liverpool where 11-year-old Rhys Jones was shot dead.

In July the culture, media and sport select committee criticised the website, on to which 10 hours of video are uploaded every minute, for not protecting users enough from the ‘dark side’ of internet content.

A Google spokesman said: ‘There has been particular concern over videos in the UK that involve showing weapons with the aim of intimidation, and this is one of the areas we are addressing.’

The move comes days after YouTube also introduced new global guidelines to outlaw content that ‘directly incites violence’. In a blog post to users late last week it said: ‘We realise it’s not always obvious where we draw the line on content that’s acceptable to upload. We’ve updated the community guidelines … included in the update are a few new things to steer clear of, like not directly inciting violence.’

Other existing rules relate to the posting of videos that show violence and include ‘hate speech’. But the new rules will not change the internet giant’s stance on the way content is regulated.

It is committed to a policy of user-moderation, arguing it is impractical for it to vet every video before it is posted. Once a video is flagged up as potentially inappropriate YouTube’s staff examine it and remove it if it breaks the guidelines.

The media select committee, chaired by John Whittingdale, the Tory MP for Maldon and East Chelmsford, had called on video sharing sites to undertake a ‘proactive review of content’ to ‘quarantine’ material until it was deemed suitable to be posted.

But Google said such an approach was impractical. ‘YouTube is a community site used by millions of people in very positive ways. Sadly, as with any form of communication, a tiny minority of people will try to break the rules,’ said a spokesman.

‘When users see content they think is inappropriate they can flag it. If the content breaks our terms we aim to remove it quickly and if a user repeatedly breaks the rules we will disable their account.’

The site, bought by Google for $1.65bn (£92m) in 2006 just 18 months after it launched, has faced consistent criticism on both sides of the Atlantic over some of the videos posted by its huge user base.

As well as unsuitable or offensive videos, copyright holders have complained that their material is being posted without their permission. The media giant Viacom and the English Premier League are among those who have launched legal action against what they see as copyright infringement on a grand scale.

Here too, YouTube argues that it takes videos down as soon as they are flagged up by copyright holders.

David Edgar: This muddled terror law limits free speech and wrecks innocent lives: Comment is free, The Guardian: The glorification clause of the Terrorism Act has created a climate where artists and academics must watch their words.

Written by David Edgar, The Guardian, Tuesday July 22 2008″

A student downloads an al-Qaida document from a US government website and is held in custody for six days. A shop assistant writes poems about cutting people’s heads off and is tried for being a terrorist. An opera composer is accused of promoting terrorism, objects, and is bankrupted by a national newspaper.

What do these cases have in common? First, none of these people was successfully convicted of any crime. Second, none of them faced charges under the glorification clause of the Terrorism Act 2006. Third, they would not have been arrested and/or tried and/or bankrupted had it not been a climate of opinion created by that clause.