What to Make of Google’s Decision to Block the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ Movie

YouTube is in a tough spot here. It certainly doesn’t want to play any part, even an indirect one, in fueling violence that has already resulted in four American deaths. But censoring the video also cuts against Google’s stated ideology, which has a “bias in favor of free expression — not just because it’s a key tenet of free societies, but also because more information generally means more choice, more power, more economic opportunity and more freedom for people.” Google’s top leaders have championed the power of the Internet to make society more free by making the Internet more free, and the company has been a vocal and constant critic of China’s efforts to control what people do and say online. In certain instances, Google has prominently defied a government’s request to remove content, such as when it protected videos documenting police brutality here in the United States.