It's less "terrifying" than the current alternative, where people can openly support various forms of extreme violence, get away with it, and monetize on the way.

Mind you this "internet" is private biz. This is a pretty obvious "don't vomit on my rug" case. Don't like it? Find another party.

I really don't care if people "support" various forms of extreme violence by watching youtube movies. That is WAY better than supporting it by committing various forms of extreme violence.

Is there any actual evidence that these youtube videos are in fact driving people to commit acts of terrorism?

yes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

Why then are they posted?

In hope they'll make people become terrorists. That is not the same as observing those videos actually do it.

Also, some of them are probably posted just so that the Western media can find them and scare the population shitless with them, pumping the huge autoimmune response we have wrt. terrorism here.

If cable companies are monopolies, surely Google is as well.

As this technology gets more widespread, each nation will have a different set of rules of what people can and can not see.

The internet bubbles will get worse.

People are quick to condemn certain states for their censorship, but give a pass for Google easily. Don't get me wrong, in this particular case there are very few who would argue with Google, but not long ago there were discussions about search results bias during the election campaigns for example.

Indeed, if Google thinks they are capable of shaping the narrative, what is stopping them from redirecting people e.g. to Coalition for Better Ads when searching for a content blocker? It is not hard to imaging scenarios when Google and the individuals' incentives are not aligned and that slope is slippery.

We already have the groundwork. Obscene images are illegal, and morally I've yet to see a justification for why (justification for some cases, but most cases I've yet to see a good justification that is consistently applied in other area). Government should just declare any extremist material as obscene and ban it under the existing framework.

We don't know what we don't know... There already is censorship. The worst prison is the one where you can't see the bars.

Why is it terrifying for the "internet"?

It's an action by Google, not the internet. If Google is the "internet" then maybe they shouldn't be.

There isn't anything stopping folks from setting up alternative video hosting/social network sites.

There's nothing stopping you setting up your own TV station or newspaper or search engine.

Just the billions of dollars and thousands of talented staff.

So, yeah, for 99.999% of people it is impossible.

It probably costs like $20 and a WordPress plugin to set up a video hosting/social network site.

If that's impossible to achieve maybe there is some analogue of Darwin's law about whether your content deserves audience.

But the real thing isn't the platform. These groups are after the audience. And that I see Google as having having no moral responsibility to provide.

They aren't locked out of the internet at all or prohibited from creating/distributing content (with which I would take objection). They just can't use a private companies distribution channel at the same level as other users to get eyeballs. Cry me a river. It's not the end of the internet.

Supporting violence and hate isn't acceptable in any other format, why should the Internet be excluded.

While your statement is quite vague it is no less completely inaccurate. "Supporting violence" is subjective and ambiguous. Are action movies and video games supportive of violence? How about war documentaries?

Furthermore, while "hate" speech is not the best use of our ability to communicate it does fall under the protection of free speech - at least in the United States. In some groups hate speech (however it is you describe it) is acceptable.

Just as you are free to not associate with those groups the internet should be free to express the ideas you disagree with.

You don't have the freedom to interfere or disrupt the freedoms of others.

Actually just went back and re-read what I wrote, I'm not entirely sure what the point was I was trying to get across now.

It absolutely is acceptable. There's a lot of hate being stirred towards ISIS, and violence is supported quite openly in the media, and also used in the real world.

The west has enemies and stirs up hate and uses violence to target them, adding to the mayhem in the middle east, killing 10s of thousands of people every year.

Violence is very acceptable for the western democracies. You have to be willfully ignorant not to see this, after the last two years and 70000 people killed by the coalition during that time.

You're confusing is with ought. Violence is only acceptable in very reasoned, measured manners, and only to achieve clear and decisive goals. Hate is not acceptable anywhere. Outrage, maybe.

> You're confusing is with ought.

How so? I don't see it.

edit: Anyway. There's a lot of hate towards real or believed enemies of the west. It's easily visible online in news websites' comment sections, on social media, etc. It is somewhat rare to see people standing up against it. Even on platforms, where you need to provide gov. ID to be able to discuss, and your name is visible to others, people feel perfectly fine to spew hate against muslims, ISIS, or whatever in very non-measured ways.

My point with the previous comment is, that it is important to realize the western hate and violence too and not to brush it away, because it's very significant in its effect on peoples lives.

I'm not from the US, so it might be different in different countries.

Snail mail letters are the oldest somewhat comparable format. Privacy of your envelope of hate speech is secured by law in most western nations.

However we have recently seen that principle degrade with all kinds of exceptions. It's weird given how little potential islamist terrorism has in the west compared to what communism, republicanism or protestantism had in the past.

The basic state of human nature seems to be struggle. I suspect the engineers at Google understand quite deeply how serious this is. But I am afraid we are approaching a state of war.

As with all weapons, there is no doubt a risk that enemies will get the weapons. Open source will in fact make it easier. Network control will be more important.

And there are many, many fronts. Trump. ISIL. Any number of dictators (the Chinese Communist Party, Putin's oligarchy). And only a few bright lights of democracy.