Thursday, February 23, 2006

Google censors an antisemitic video.... And I am sorry they did

In the last few hours Google Video removed two of revisionist Michael A. Hoffman II's three videos from its free video online website (http://video.google.com).

According to Hoffman [take anything a denier says with a grain of skepticism] he received the an e-mail from Google informing him that his "videos violate our Program Policies. The titles of the videos are listed at the end of this message. According to our policy, we are removing the following videos: World War Two Revisionist Charles Provan [and] Deborah Lipstadt, "Amalek" and David Irving..."

The video, which was a virulent attack on me by Hoffman, was introduced by David Irving. I had actually placed a link to the video on this blog.

Hoffman attributes its removal to "behind-the-scenes pressure that was exerted on Google." In his statement about the removal he clearly attributes the pressure to me.

Now here's the rub. I am sorry the video is gone. It was such a blatant example of the venomous hatred these folks feel towards Jews. It also was a prime illustration of their delusional conspiracy theories. I had used it in a number of speeches to illustrate their thinking.

I showed clips of it to some of my students to illustrate contemporary antisemitism. They got it without my having to say anything.

Now it's gone....

[At least I know that there is lots more of this kind of stuff out there and I will easily find a replacement for this video. That's what modern Hebrew would describe as hatzi nechama, half a consolation.]

1 comment:

Adrian Weston said...

The whole google thing is rather troubling - what with their going into China and kowtowing to repressive regimes business. In fact there is a rather timely piece on the bbc site about one of the victims of Tianamen square's recent release after 17 years in gaol which might serve as a reminder of China and freedom of speech issues! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4742478.stm

It will be interesting to see whether any people do switch off google.