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-- Al Qaeda and Google
Al Qaeda and Google
Just what the hell are these guys up too??? 
For an internet based company with ideally, no political ideaologies or affiliations, they're certainly sure playing into the hands of those that choose to harm us.
Does Google not see the hypocracy in their decisions?? 
Suffice to say, what does one do?
If the American government does step in, an arguement could be made to say that such an action would be no different than Google's current debacle.
My question would then be to them, where exactly does Google's allegiances lie?
Is Google obligated, by principal, in a time of a global, ideological war?
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Al Qaeda and Google Al Qaeda is using a service run by Google to spread propaganda and recruit killers for the global jihad�and Google (who censors search results for the Chinese government) won�t shut them down: >>Source<< >Bin Laden Fan Clubs Go Online.<
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I think I'll wait until this is on CNN.com and other sites. No offense.
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| Originally posted by Marc Summers I think I'll wait until this is on CNN.com and other sites. No offense. |
It would be hard to take. I always thought of google to be amazing and for the people. I just hope this is a rumor.
fair enough, spread this article to other forums that you go to.
let it be a information propaganda, critizing al qaeda and google.
Let it be known.
Would have no problem believing it. And I bet Cyrus Queer and Hardcore Analer are behind it 
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| Originally posted by Marc Summers I think I'll wait until this is on CNN.com and other sites. No offense. |
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Osama bin Laden fan clubs build online communities By Kasie Hunt, USA TODAY Al-Qaeda sympathizers are using Orkut, a popular, worldwide Internet service owned by Google, to rally support for Osama bin Laden, share videos and Web links promoting terrorism and recruit non-Arabic-speaking Westerners, according to terrorism experts and a survey of the sites. This "community" on Orkut declares, "The World Needs More Osamas."  Most jihadist message boards on traditional websites are in Arabic and require users to know someone connected with the boardbefore they can gain access. Social networking services such as Orkut, Friendster and MySpace, however, allow users to create personal profiles and associate with "communities" based on shared interests. After users join one of these services, they have access to the forum postings in any public community. These popular Internet services can be used for everything from publicizing a garage band to finding dates to connecting supporters of democracy � or terrorism. Political impact Reporters Without Borders, a press freedom advocacy group, notes in a recent report that Internet use has grown faster in Iran than in any other Middle Eastern country, largely because of its political potential. "Weblogs are much used at times of crisis, such as during the June 2003 student demonstrations, when they were the main source of news about the protests and helped the students to rally and organize," the group's report says. Militants, too, are flourishing on websites. On Orkut, at least 10 communities are devoted to praising bin Laden, al-Qaeda or jihad (holy war) against the United States. They can be found easily through a simple English-language search of the site. The largest bin Laden community has more than 2,000 members, according to Orkut's tracking data, available on the site. It has a link to the site of the Islamic Army in Iraq, the group that claimed responsibility for and released a video of a bombing Dec. 2 that killed 10 Marines in Fallujah. "They're one of the largest insurgency groups in Iraq today," says Rita Katz, director of SITE Institute, a Washington non-profit that tracks terrorist activity online for government and private clients, including the Department of Homeland Security. SITE gathers data by infiltrating and monitoring message boards and other sites that terrorism supporters frequent. English-speaking visitors to the sites can find videos of attacks, see pictures of dead U.S. soldiers and read an English translation of the Iraq-based wing of al-Qaeda's latest communiqu� before it is available in English anywhere else, Katz says. "We know for sure that al-Qaeda is trying to recruit as many as possible from the Western societies, not people who look like Arabs," she says. "This is a good place to be if you want to recruit people like that." Translated communiqu�s from al-Qaeda in Iraq have been appearing, four or five at a time, on a message board forum within an Orkut community since Dec. 26, Katz says. When al-Qaeda's operation in Iraq officially started calling itself the Mujahedin Shura Council on Jan. 15, she says, updates on the forum reflected the change. Google, which operates Orkut, says it tries to balance the free flow of information against the appearance of objectionable material by keeping intervention to a minimum. Google spokeswoman Debbie Frost says the service may remove obscene, defamatory or otherwise objectionable material from Orkut sites "but has no obligation to." Frost did acknowledge that Google deleted some terrorism-related content that violated Orkut's published terms of service after USA TODAY inquired about it. "It is a very fine line to walk sometimes," says Paul McMasters, a free speech expert at the Freedom Forum in Arlington, Va. "But our tradition under the First Amendment is always: Come down on the side of more speech, not less speech." In any case, says Kurt Opsahl, a staff attorney with the advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, the sheer size of the Internet makes it "simply impossible to monitor all the communications that get posted." Popular overseas Orkut, which claims 13 million members, is particularly popular overseas, notably in Iran and Brazil. Iranian traffic was curtailed in January when the government banned Orkut and several popular blogging tools that carried anti-government content, Reporters Without Borders noted. Despite Iran's actions, Orkut's size offers a measure of protection from outside interference that attracts terrorism sympathizers. "It's difficult for Saudi Arabia, for example, to censor that whole website" because so many citizens use it for legitimate purposes and would notice if it were shut down, Katz says. Orkut users who are members of communities such as "Al-Qaeda" and "Jihad Videos" take advantage of this to trade information as well as to provide links to other radical websites. More than half of Orkut's users claim, upon registration, to be ages 18-25, and more than 75% say they are under 35, according to the service's tracking data. Some experts see the communities fostering an environment that reinforces radical beliefs among young people. "You are creating what I call a virtual community of hatred and seeding these ideas very early," says Jerrold Post, director of the political psychology program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Others note that the technology makes possible some free speech in oppressive countries and say that will ultimately foster democracy. "You've got to remember the entire picture," says Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington. "The technology allows more good from the good people than bad from the bad people. It has immense positive consequences." "I think the knee-jerk response will be to blame the messenger," says Bruce Hoffman, director of the RAND Institute's counterterrorism center. "But the jihadists are already using the Internet," he says. "The real issue is how we counter these messages of hate and radicalism." |
I don't really see what's to get so upset about. If a specific web page glorifies or instigates violence, then it can be shut down by a court order - no matter if it's on Google's servers or somewhere else in the US. Obviously Google cannot control all its content, and cannot be expected to close down all pages, which are offensive to some individual. According to the USA Today article, they *do* occasionally close down some sites, so what more do you want them to do?
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| Originally posted by trancaholic so what more do you want them to do? |
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| Originally posted by trancaholic I don't really see what's to get so upset about. If a specific web page glorifies or instigates violence, then it can be shut down by a court order - no matter if it's on Google's servers or somewhere else in the US. Obviously Google cannot control all its content, and cannot be expected to close down all pages, which are offensive to some individual. According to the USA Today article, they *do* occasionally close down some sites, so what more do you want them to do? |
Hooray Al Qaeda! Hooray Communism! Hooray Terrorism!
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| Originally posted by Vlad Hooray Al Qaeda! Hooray Communism! Hooray Terrorism! |
What about the possibility that the govt is being assisted by google to track any or all of those that use this site? After all if the site is being accessed by those with an interest in following Bin Laden, the CIA/FBI would be keen to kow who and where they are right?
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| Originally posted by skot_e What about the possibility that the govt is being assisted by google to track any or all of those that use this site? After all if the site is being accessed by those with an interest in following Bin Laden, the CIA/FBI would be keen to kow who and where they are right? |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r Good point. I find it ironic that Google can't keep track of their own stuff. To say that they can't is a boatload of poop. If they can help a communist regime filter out anti-communist searchings they can certainly search their own network for terrorist sympathisers... |
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| Originally posted by trancaholic The two issues are different. In one Google is given a list of results that should be filtered out before sending search results to a Chinese IP. That's easy to do, and would take any decent programmer about a week to implement. Doing a manual check for pages that glorify terrorism requires hiring loads of staff, and keep them on board forever. Using datamining techniques to do this job automatically would, besides requiring a substantial effort to train the software, inevitably result in Google blocking/closing down pages, which have nothing to do with terrorism. That would mean anger directed at Google, and in the end loss of customers. |
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