The first time was when Obama leaned on YouTube to take down the “Innocence of Muslims” trailer which it was busy pretending had been behind a series of internationally coordinated Jihadist attacks on US diplomatic facilities on September 11, the most famous of which was the Benghazi attack.
I don’t like Google as a company, but it did the right thing with Innocence of Muslims, continuing to keep the movie trailer up even when the White House was telling it to take it down, and continuing to defend the right to show the trailer even now in a case that has gone to the Supreme Court.
With the “Innocence of Muslims” many felt that the amateurishness of the production and its crude qualities meant that it should be dismissed. But that was never the point. Just as the non-existent artistic merits of The Interview aren’t the point.
Foreign totalitarian entities shouldn’t be put in the position of being able to censor anything in the United States, no matter how offensive it is or how badly it’s made, whether they’re Muslims or Communists.
The internet is both the biggest boost to free speech and the biggest threat. The situation with The Interview shows us how true that is.
Considering Google’s power over the internet through its search monopoly and its YouTube ownership, it’s a good thing that despite its many flaws and downright troubling behavior, it has taken a classical position on free speech, hosting and defending controversial content.





















