• Los Angeles Times, Monday, December 13, 2010 2:34 PM

By popular demand, YouTube is now letting users flag a video for removal because it promotes terrorism. To date, "YouTube and its parent company, Google, have been criticized by lawmakers for refusing to prescreen militant speeches and propaganda videos," the Los Angeles Times reports. "But rather than submit to policies that many argue would amount to an erosion of 1st Amendment rights ... YouTube is taking a decidedly more democratic path -- let the customers decide."

Other material that YouTube considers flag-worthy includes nudity, sexual activity, and animal abuse. Still, this latest policy shift "puts YouTube in the middle of a debate over whether it is possible to protect free speech and deny militants a powerful recruitment tool," according to the LA Times. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), for one, called the new flagging protocols a "good first step toward scrubbing mainstream Internet sites of terrorist propaganda." On the other hand, George Washington University law professor Jeffrey Rosen says the phrase "promotes terrorism" is more subject to interpretation than existing guidelines.

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