YouTube and the Cyber Jihad

Google is a great internet company but they should leave geo-political analysis to experts. Recently, columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin was informed by YouTube's operators that a video she had posted was deemed offensive and taken down. Titled "First, They Came," Malkin's video was a slideshow showing some victims of Islamist violence, much of it inspired by the Mohammed cartoon fiasco earlier this year. This is what YouTube operators called "inappropriate." YouTube, however, doesn't monitor the videos users post. Instead, it relies on complaints from users. Malkin discovered that hers isn't the first anti-Islamist video yanked from YouTube. At the same time, Islamists have posted hundreds of their own propaganda videos extolling the virtues of jihad, terrorism, etc. With the Internet, terrorists are able to attack us by cowing nervous website owners into submitting to their demands. Civil-liberties advocates have constantly overlooked the very real danger of censorship enacted by private businesses fearful of Islamist rage.