YouTube Shuts Down Palestine Media Watch Account And Then Reinstates It – Sort Of

PMW needs your help. YouTube – a Google company – has closed down PMW's main video account - PALWATCH - for "violating YouTube terms of use", by supposedly propagating hate speech. Of course PMW does not promote hate speech, but exposes the hate speech of the PA and the Hamas, in order to bring about its elimination.

Bulletin

Dec. 19, 2010


YouTube closes down PMW account


p:+972 2 625 4140     e: pmw@palwatch.org


f: +972 2 624 2803       w: www.palwatch.org


PMW needs your help. YouTube has closed down PMW's main video account -


PALWATCH - for "violating YouTube terms of use", by supposedly propagating


hate speech. Of course PMW does not promote hate speech, but exposes the


hate speech of the PA and the Hamas, in order to bring about its


elimination.



YouTube stated that the account was henceforth terminated "due to repeated


or severe violations of our Terms of Use" and they specified the following


PMW videos from Palestinian sources, promoting the killing of Jews:



1. "Hamas TV teaches kids to kill Jews" formerly at


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwN2M6ZIIRU


Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 10/02/2009.



2. "Jews are a virus like Aids" formerly at


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYaGl3KjPUw


Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 01/18/2010.



3. "Farewell video before suicide attack of Hamas suicide bomber Adham Ahmad


Hujyla Abu Jandal" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYdTudQhWM4


Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 06/10/2010.



4. "Hamas suicide farewell video: Jews monkeys and pigs; Maidens reward for


killing Jews" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryc7RqXlVdE


Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 08/14/2010.



5. "PA cleric: Kill Jews, Allah will make Muslims masters over Jews"


formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjuDTO8fgqM


Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 12/12/2010.



6. "Hamas suicide terrorist farewell video: Palestinians drink the blood of


Jews" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSftYIGH6-w


Removed for violating our Terms of Use on 12/15/2010.



PMW urgently seeks to have this account reopened, since some of these videos


have accumulated hundreds of thousands of viewings and the exposure is


critical to our ongoing work.


If any of our subscribers could help, it would be much appreciated.



Thank you,


Itamar Marcus

Google / YouTube has a history of this type of censorship, from blocking IDF videos showing precision strikes against terrorist targets to blocking Michelle Malkin's videos and marking them private without her permission. The New York Times Magazine even caught Google clearly lying about what it had done to Malkin.

Google also drops publishers and advertisers without notice, accusing them of violations of Google's policies – violations that often do not exist.

I have a friend whose website was dropped from Google's ad program because, Google claimed, he was practicing click fraud (clicking on the ads on one's own site to make more money). Google's 'proof' for this was the site's traffic dropped on Friday, stayed down through the weekend, and then picked up again on Monday, week after week.

The site is an Orthodox Jewish website. It has fewer readers Fridays and Saturdays because of the Sabbath. It also does not publish new material on Saturday or Sunday – hence the reduced traffic.

These facts did not stop Google from unilaterally dropping the site from the program.

Google regularly destroys businesses and destroys lives while 'enforcing' its policies, and does so without granting the people it damages any form of redress.

At some point, the government is going to have to investigate Google and, perhaps, break its near monopoly.

For those of you who wonder why J for J and other Christian missionary ads show up with alarming regularity on mainstream Jewish websites, but anti-missionary and anti-J for J ads rarely show up anywhere, or why IDF videos are censored, or Michelle Malkin videos are censored, or why PMW videos are now censored, look no further than Google's executives, who play fast, loose and unfair with the truth.

[Hat Tip: Yair.]

Related Posts.

Update 8:40 am CST – According to this email forwarded to be by the Other DK, YouTube has reinstated PMW's account:

Thanks to everyone!

PMW wants to personally thank our subscribers and supporters.
In response to your many actions - your emails to You Tube, your blogs, tweets, op-eds, and calls to Google - as of this morning the YouTube "Palwatch" account is once again functional.

Much thanks to everyone.
Itamar Marcus

But despite Marcus's letter, not all PMW's individual videos are reinstated. Here is an example sent in by Yair of one that is not:

Comments

[Adam Neira]

Palestine Media Watch does an excellent job. I have been aware of their work for the last eight years. The people involved are doing righteous work. Those that shine a light onto nefarious activities should be supported. There is a vast difference between a slanderer and detective.

You Tube like many organisations is made up of people who make executive decisions. Any company without a philosophical base however is like a yacht without a rudder sailing aimlessly on the high seas. In this multi-dimensional media world of ours, companies such as You Tube need to maintain oversight, control and sovereignty of their medium and massage. Cyberspace does need boundaries and censorship measures. It is best left up to wise people to determine the level and scope of these.

Blessing to the people at PMW.

[PulpitRabbi]

The article raises an important problem, but does not suggest what we can do. Is anyone organizing a petition? Is there a particular address to appeal a Google decision?

[Garnel Ironheart]

Kol hakavod. Google is sensitive to public pressure. Several months ago I was told that if you typed in "Chrisianity is" into the Google search box, Google Suggests would offer such things as "sucks" or "is stupid" and so on. If you typed in "Islam is" nothing came up. But a few weeks later after the article I read that factoid in went viral, one suddenly got similar suggestions for Islam.
Keep up the pressure.

[Izzy]

Per JPost, their channel has been reactivated, due to public outcry.

[FirstGenerationBavarianAmerican]

Youtube will need what was needed to "tighten up" PayPal - a class action lawsuit.

As far as the google ad program goes, the state of the art does not permit google to say with absolute certainty that click fraud is taking place. They are probably using software that uses statistical models to flag potential click fraud. Of course, a few people will get wrongly accused. Maybe honest but defrauded content providers could raise $2 million to launch a lawsuit against google. Google will settle rather than get exposed for typical arrogant computer software programmers delivering software that does not do what it is supposed to do.

[Betzalel]

A few years ago, if you clicked on Google Videos, you could watch the "Top 100 videos" and "Hot videos". No longer.

My guess is because almost always, many of the hottest videos and top 100 videos were Conspiracy Theory videos. After the autumn of 2008, when the stock market crashed and Obama became president, conspiracy theory videos got even more popular and many were anti-Semitic.

[Justin Time]

Ah, Adam. Control of their "massage"? Nice.