We all should have seen it coming. YouTube, the bastion of all things video and user-created, is now becoming a medium for extremist propaganda. Recently, some Islamic terrorist (truly an oxymoron for people who know better) groups are uploading their anti-American and anti-Western videos to YouTube for a larger audience than the marginal websites they used to be hosted on. I don’t want to go into a ton of detail here – I don’t need to repeat their messages more times than necessary - but the original article gives enough disgusting examples of hate. It’s a tough fight for YouTube, as a statement from the company states, “YouTube has clear terms and conditions which prohibit, amongst other things, hateful content. Our community has been highly effective in policing the site, and YouTube removes videos if our community flags them as inappropriate.” Basically, they’ll only do something if someone else complains first.

Therein lies the only problem with internet and free speech. On the one hand, we’re free to see six-year olds singing Phantom of the Opera or monkeys throwing feces at each other. (Note: I pulled these examples out of my ass and proceeded to look on YouTube for them; it took all of a minute and a half.) Hell, as our sister site Destructoid likes to say, you can see “also cocks” if you’re so inclined. However, this freedom is extended to those who would do harm or promote hatred. Should YouTube be formally policed? Or worse, who would police the police? (Sorry for the overly-serious tone, this is what you get when you’re recovering from teh SARS.)

[via Forbes Online]