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YouTube carrying terrorist-branded videos

Senator Joe Lieberman asked Google's CEO Eric Schmidt to do more about alleged terrorist videos made by al-Qaeda being posted on YouTube.

The use of the Internet by terrorists to recruit more followers continues to alarm the government. Easy access and minimal costs make the Net an ideal conduit for all kinds of ideas, unfortunately bringing the bad along with the good.

Lieberman wants Google to do what it can to stem the flow of one particular method of distributing terrorist information. In a letter from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that Lieberman chairs, the Senator asked for help against a "multi-tiered online media operation that produces content intended to enlist followers in countries all over the world, including the United States."

The letter also cited findings by the committee that various groups branded as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) were themselves engaged in branding activities as well.

"Searches on YouTube return dozens of videos branded with an icon or logo identifying the videos as the work of one of these Islamist terrorist organizations," said Lieberman. "A great majority of these videos document horrific attacks on American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan."

To counter this, Lieberman wants Google to work harder at enforcing existing community guidelines on YouTube. "This should be a straightforward task since so many of the Islamist terrorist organizations brand their material with logos or icons identifying their provenance," he said.