YouTube, Nazis and Hate Speech
ZDNet reports that YouTube faces criticism and possible legal action for hosting anti-semitic videos:
The videos hosted on YouTube include clips of a 1940 anti-Semitic propaganda film Jud Suess and two music videos of outlawed German far-right rock band Landser, which show footage from World War II depicting Nazi military operations.
Report Mainz, which is due to air the program, said in a statement that Social Democrat (SPD) parliamentarian Dieter Wiefelspuetz said airing the clips on YouTube in Germany was scandalous. Report Mainz quoted him as saying: “Publishing these films amounts to aiding and abetting incitement of the people.”
You know, the older I get, the less sure I am about dealing with hate speech, particularly in a context like YouTube. After all, the web has increasingly sophisticated filtering mechanisms which enable the truth to bubble to the top. Nothing lives in isolation online, and so people who comment on and link to a hateful video can dilute much of its power. Is metadata a reasonable replacement for anti-hate speech laws?
Being a Caucasian, male, straight Westerner, I’m pretty much in every majority group you’d care to identify, and so I’m not really the target of any such speech. I’d probably feel differently if my grandparents died at Auschwitz.
I couldn’t figure out how to tastefully work in a reference to JewTube in this post, but it’s just staring us in the face, isn’t it?
August 28th, 2007 at 6:18 am
Blame Canada.
August 28th, 2007 at 6:59 am
The grandparents of the people that made those German anti hate speech laws probably didn’t die in Auschwitz either.
That they didn’t want to hear antisemtic or other crap from their fellow Germans was an understandable notion back after the war (still is, of course). But it’s about time those laws get revised and adapted to our present knowledge.
But what would television journalists do then? They could spend their time learning what the internet is. Just imagine what the author of that piece about Youtube must have thought. “Oooh, there’s hate speech on the internet. What a scandal! What a story! Pulitzer price! Now!”
August 28th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Being a male, Caucasian, straight, Westerner-
you forgot to add “middle class”. :)
March 4th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
The problem of hate speech on youtube will not disappear without strong legal action. Just try to report racist, threatening hate speech on Youtube. Not only will your reports be ignored, you will be blocked as a spammer if you process more than a dozen reports. The simple fact is that Youtube makes money per hit, and more comments on videos means more hits, and the new system of ‘rating’ comments means even more hits. Comments are like crack cocaine to youtube users, and Youtube profits from every hateful and provocative comment it hosts. In a nutshell, Youtube publishes unimaginable volumes of hate speech every day, and yet we criticize China, for instance, for attempting to block this social menace. No-nonsense legal action is required to bring Youtube in line with standards of decency.
March 23rd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
youtube is sadly a home for chickenshit nazi wanna bes.. youtube is home to nazis, porn freaks , theres maybe 90% good stuff on youtube , sadly nothing will change. no courts will stop the nazi parasites, we all know they are pathetic spineless losers.what decent normal person wastes their time w that crap?