Why YouTube Is Wrong to Censor the Anti-Islam Video

http://www.thenation.com/blog/169952/why-youtube-wrong-censor-anti-islam-video

While few would challenge Google's motives in this situation, it is easy to see why this is a problematic step for a global publisher. Whether the local pressure is from autocratic governments or violent mobs, the company should not risk the perception that such activity is rewarded with censorship. It's hard to decide when a video crosses the line from advocacy to hate speech, or from documenting torture to glorifying it—a grisly question raised by videos uploaded from the Syrian crackdown, as The Nation reported at the time—but the answers are binary. Videos found to violate the policy come down. A localized approach is trickier, and it raises the temptation of tamping down controversies by proactively warping free speech in the very places where it is most threatened.