Google’s YouTube is publishing nazi videos online. How can Google stop this without violating the right to free speech?

There has been a lot of discussion online on Google’s policy regarding copyright-violations on YouTube, the social video distribution site it bought last year.

YouTube allows anyone to upload videos for global access.

YouTube restrictions

YouTube does remove videos — a lot of them, actually — and in its Community Guidelines it says that:

When a video gets flagged as inappropriate, we review the video to determine whether it violates our Terms of Use—flagged videos are not automatically taken down by the system.

Pornography and gratuitous violence is out, as are videos showing dangerous or illegal acts.

The policy towards political extremism sounds about right:

We encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. But we don’t permit hate speech which contains slurs or the malicious use of stereotypes intended to attack or demean a particular gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or nationality.

When does it become racism?

But what about videos that promote extremism without directly attacking or demeaning a race or nationality?

Any video that promotes national-socialism or praises organisations under the German Nazi party does at least indirectly promote the view that Adolf Hitler was on the right track. Can Google live with that?

Nazi propaganda on YouTube

At the moment you can find a lot of extreme right wing heavy metal on YouTube.

In Ruhm und Ehre der Waffen SS the German black metal band Stahlgewitter praises the SS Storm Troopers of Hitler. In the lyrics Waffen SS soldiers are praised for their heroism and their honor.

ich weiss dass ihr sie nie vergesst,
Ruhm und Ehre der Waffen-SS,
ich weiss dass ihr sie nie vergesst,
Ruhm und Ehre der Waffen-SS

I know that you will never forget them
Fame and honor for the Waffen SS

The music is accompanied by second world war film footage of SS soldiers parading and in action. Hitler is also included.

Crimes against humanity

Just to be 100 percent clear: Waffen SS is one of the most horrible and bestial military organizations that have ever existed.

They murdered millions of people and played a central role in the extermination of 6 million Jews. The fact that someone can praise them in this day and age is just sickening.

The comment field is full of YouTube users promoting the nazi ideals, like “deutschland erwache 88″ (meaning “Wake up Germany, Heil Hitler!” — 88 is code for HH). We even found a Jew praising the SS!

i am jewish, yet i would fight for the waffen ss in a heartbeat. i dont think i would pass their 1000 year background racial purity test though. oh well

Censorship and the freedom of speech

At Pandia we feel pretty strongly about the freedom of speech. The fact that someone, somewhere, promotes ideas we are strongly against, does not mean that they should not be allowed to promote them.

After all, there are quite a few people out there disagreeing with our democratic ideals, and that — in itself — should not mean that they should be given the right to stop us from defending democracy. Last year’s conflict regarding the drawings of Mohamed clearly demonstrates that this is more than a purely theoretical issue.

The Web has become a very powerful tool for democratization world wide. It is very hard to suppress new ideas, when you can find anything online. This is a good thing, as it makes it much harder for dictatorships to deceive their own population.

This is also why we have criticised Google for giving in to the Chinese authorities, censoring search engine results.

So, although we do deeply understand the wish to forbid the publication of such material, we find it hard to support a policy that stops even the most disgusting political groups from arguing their case.

However, there is a difference between providing links to sites with nazi propaganda and allowing the distribution of such content on your own site. In other words, there is a difference between Google providing a link to this video, and YouTube publishing it.

As Google is the owner of YouTube, the company is ultimately responsible for the content provided. So here is our request to Google: remove all nazi propaganda from YouTube. They may have a right to freedom of expression, but they do not have a right to use your services to spread this crap.