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Author Topic: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests  (Read 6129 times)

Renegade

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Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« on: October 27, 2011, 01:39 AM »
Well, sounds like Google is trying to do the right thing:

http://www.theregist...country_differences/

Google report reveals YouTube takedown requests... by country

UK wants jihadists off, Germany nixes Nazis, US wants to hide cop brutality

...


Among other things, US authorities got in touch with Google when they wanted to kill some YouTube videos showing police brutality. Google states:

We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove YouTube videos of police brutality, which we did not remove. Separately, we received requests from a different local law enforcement agency for removal of videos allegedly defaming law enforcement officials. We did not comply with those requests, which we have categorized in this Report as defamation requests.

In total the US courts, government and police asked for 113 videos to be taken down, one because it showed "government criticism".

Google complied with just 63 per cent of content removal requests from American authorities... ®

Direct from Google:

http://www.google.co...TENT_REMOVAL_REQUEST

Yet more chilling effects... Sigh...
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

IainB

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2011, 05:54 PM »
Yes, and it is chillng, but, if nothing else, Google's reporting on this matter provides some chilling and potentially very useful social comment. A sort of wake-up call.

It looks as though it is finally(?) some credible, objective and verifiable statistical (hard) data to prove conclusively that in some so-called Western democracies, governments and government agencies are sometimes not only not protecting the hard-won privacy and liberty and freedoms of the people (as they should be doing), but eroding them, sometimes with the apparent desire to exercise self-serving State control over the people who elected their representatives into those governments to act on their behalf. The State can thus exercise an inherent tendency to become the enemy of the people, and, like rust, it never sleeps.
The signatories to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights would have understood this only too well.

Fascism is apparently alive and well.
Maybe it is related to entropy.

Is this something which we have any control over or can change?
Well, yes, maybe - at any rate, I reckon we can exercise control and create change if we wish to.
However, it will not be easy, because it is arguably something within ourselves that needs to be changed.

Here's my ten cents' worth:
Fascism seems to be such a common feature, often intrinsically present in our thinking and our use of language, and prevalent in most aspects of human society. For example, arguably or potentially including many religions, governments (QED) of different political persuasions, and protest movements/ideologies and religio-political ideologies such as greenism, climatism, nuclear disarmament, peace movements, socialism, communism, Marxism, capitalism, Islamism, Roman Catholicism, and all the other 'isms(?).
It seems to be accepted as a fact of life.
This makes me wonder whether Fascism isn't just a name given to what might in fact be a fundamental trait of human nature.

Fascism seems to stem from the tendency of one person or group of persons, for whatever reason, to want to argue to the death or force their opinions/paradigms/beliefs/ideology on another person or group of persons. The reasons or the -isms can thus often be quite irrational (e.g., belief), but whether rational or not they usually seem to be perceived as being "for the greater good". They are usually promulgated by people who would consider themselves egotistically as being good and "right-thinking" people, individually or as a group.
This would seem to be quite natural. Research apparently shows that many criminals in prisons are apparently unable to perceive/accept that they have done anything wrong. We cannot accept that we are necessarily a "bad" person, so we rationalise whatever we believe/do into the egotistical illusion that we are implicitly "good" and thus "right", thus maintaining the ego-illusion unchanged.

It's as though, if a second group holds an opposing/different view to the first, then there comes into existence a psychic tension - and if neither side can adjust to the other's view, then that tension may easily build up until it has to be expressed as irrational verbal abuse/language and then real violence by either side towards the other - even, for example, by members of a movement for peace.
In many cases, the first group regards as - and may even say this - the second group as being stupid/mentally defective or acting in a manner akin to people like (say) Hitler/Mussolini. The second group then, as likely as not, may return a "Tu quoque" (Latin: "you also") and thus rational discussion goes out the window and the discussion degenerates and is dragged down into the gutter.

In such situations, violence may become the ultimate answer to substantiate one's argument and force it's acceptance by fear of death or harm, through fear/submission, on the other person/group - however stupid/irrational or biased or however "bad" the argument may be. The truth of the matter is irrelevant.

The outcome of the irrational verbal abuse/language or real violence effectively thus becomes the de facto determinant of who has the "strongest" argument.

This is arguably characteristic of what and who we are. Irrational creatures by nature. The good news is that we don't have to stay in an intellectual gutter of thought processes, living in harmony with our personal kind of Fascism, but can do something about it.

However, just as an alcoholic has to internally understand/accept that he/she has a problem before rehabilitation can succeed, so we have to accept that "we are doing it wrong" when we are thinking, before we can develop our thinking skills (De Bono, et al), which will help us to then climb out of that gutter. The greatest levers amongst the thinking skills are probably critical thinking, imagination, and the ability to apply these to your own thinking skills/processes and beliefs.

This requires significant strength of will, as it could reperesent a dreadful threat to one's ego - which will not let go. (It is probably a survival mechanism.)
I therefore gain some personal satisfaction and hope for my future in that I at least am still climbing...

Renegade

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2011, 08:31 AM »
This would seem to be quite natural. Research apparently shows that many criminals in prisons are apparently unable to perceive/accept that they have done anything wrong.

Meh... Maybe that's not the best example in the US considering how many people they lock up. :P ;D

But yeah... I hear you. The self-righteous and self-appointed saviours... God deliver us from them...

Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

zridling

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2011, 01:56 PM »
Only crooked cops hate to be taped, yet in many parts of the US it is a felony to tape a cop doing his job. "If they have nothing to hide...."

40hz

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2011, 02:35 PM »
^Fortunately, most federal courts have not agreed with the constitutionality of those laws.

Unfortunately, in places where these laws are being abused, police continue to do so with impunity despite repeated warnings from the courts.

I was chatting about this with one of the older police officers in my town while waiting for a pizza. His take was that some cops felt the public "intimidation benefit" was worth it even if the charges always got thrown out of court.

He also felt there were generational differences driving much of it. "Problem with some of the younger guys is they think and act with a gang mentality," he said. "Kids in the late eighties and the nineties had all this 'gangsta' stuff showing up in movies and the songs they listened to. Many of these kids grew up thinking certain gang behaviors were acceptable. And now some of them see their badge as being in the biggest and toughest gang in town. It's cool to be a cop today."

Interesting...

What's wrong with this picture>
policemedic.jpg

  ;D

IainB

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #5 on: October 28, 2011, 02:39 PM »
Meh... Maybe that's not the best example in the US considering how many people they lock up.
Eh? Could you explain for me please? No sure I Understand this.

IainB

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #6 on: October 28, 2011, 02:47 PM »
Picture of police medic using truncheon with caption:
Does anybody else see something
fundamentally WRONG with this image?
Yes, he's not wearing a hard-hat like the other truncheon-wielders. Could be risky from a H&S perspective.  ;D

Stoic Joker

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #7 on: October 28, 2011, 02:58 PM »
Picture of police medic using truncheon with caption:
Does anybody else see something
fundamentally WRONG with this image?
Yes, he's not wearing a hard-hat like the other truncheon-wielders. Could be risky from a H&S perspective.  ;D

But at least he'll give you a bandaid with your beating.

Stoic Joker

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #8 on: October 28, 2011, 03:02 PM »
Meh... Maybe that's not the best example in the US considering how many people they lock up.
Eh? Could you explain for me please? No sure I Understand this.

He's picking on the fact that we (in the US) like to lockup citizens for dumb shit, and then let the real criminals go free ('cause there's no room left/) ... Because they're harder to catch and dangerous and stuff.

IainB

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #9 on: October 28, 2011, 03:56 PM »
Ruddy heck.
(Thanks for the explanation @Stoic Joker.)

Renegade

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #10 on: October 28, 2011, 07:07 PM »
Meh... Maybe that's not the best example in the US considering how many people they lock up.
Eh? Could you explain for me please? No sure I Understand this.

He's picking on the fact that we (in the US) like to lockup citizens for dumb shit, and then let the real criminals go free ('cause there's no room left/) ... Because they're harder to catch and dangerous and stuff.

Yes. It was a tongue in cheek comment on how the US has more people in prison per capita than pretty much anywhere else (a failed attempt at humour). The implication is that either all the "criminals" go scot-free elsewhere, or the US is locking up a lot of people that it doesn't need to.

e.g. You always hear some nutty case in the US like the bum that got 17 years in prison for stealing something like an apple or whatever. Disproportionate sentences, etc. etc.

I'm not really much of an advocate for the prison system. It doesn't seem to work very well.
Slow Down Music - Where I commit thought crimes...

Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John Diefenbaker

Stoic Joker

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Re: Google Publishes Government Take Down Requests
« Reply #11 on: October 28, 2011, 10:13 PM »
Yes. It was a tongue in cheek comment on how the US has more people in prison per capita than pretty much anywhere else (a failed attempt at humour).

Hay, it wasn't a complete failure ... I was laughing.  :D