[Alupis]

I don't think anyone really takes issue with Twitter pulling down content -- they are a private company (as-in not controlled by the govt) -- but when a government starts censoring material (like in the UK were linking-to, or even viewing of this sort of material is considered illegal), that's where things get not-OK.

What I find more outrageous was that the reporter apparently was held captive for 2 years... without anyone (in the public) knowing. Bergdahl was held captive for 5 years and luckily was returned in a controversial exchange. What is going on that we are not able to protect and/or recover our people?

Seems to send a clear message that if you get captured by an extremists group like ISIS, the government won't come running in to save you, nor will the public even know you are missing -- fore the government doesn't want to stir public opinion into favoring some sort of military action. So, in essence -- you are all alone out there, potentially for years, or worse. -- That is outrageous to me.

[bellerocky]

Yeah the threats about being arrested for viewing the video struck me as weird too. It's a horrific video and I have no intention of viewing it but watching it makes you a criminal? Then again I'm totally OK with people being arrested for watching child pornography so there's some kind of gray line where even consuming content is no longer OK and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to figure out what goes in what bucket, but I probably wouldn't have put the ISIS's videos in the "going to jail for watching it" bucket.

Anyway my comments were a response to the idea that Diaspora should promote its decentralized platform on the wake of ISIS publicity, which is a really stupid idea. It had nothing to do with government censorship, although I have no problems with governments discouraging murder videos.

[waps]

> Yeah the threats about being arrested for viewing the video struck me as weird too.

A police officer explained this to me. They do this because they want the ability to arrest the people who are recruiting muslims using these videos. The "recruiting" thing is impossible to prove, so ...

These videos are made with one purpose only : to recruit more muslims to their cause. Assuming they know what they're doing, that's exactly what free dissemination of these videos will do (otherwise, after all, there wouldn't be an al qaeda or IS organization in the first place).

I think you can at least agree that using arrests, and even violence (of the police kind, not the IS kind), to prevent that from happening is unambiguously a good thing.

The arguments against these laws are mostly of the "slippery slope" kind, and I agree that these laws are open to abuse. I hate to say it but I also don't see an alternative.

[seanflyon]

> They do this because they want the ability to arrest the people who are recruiting muslims using these videos. The "recruiting" thing is impossible to prove, so ...

I take issue with this. They think someone is guilty of a real, serious crime, but they can't prove it so they want to convict them of something else. That is bypassing the concept of "innocent until proven guilty".

[waps]

You may think that you'll vote to stop this, but you won't. Think about the consequences of your position for 5 seconds. If modern law cannot guarantee people's freedom from large-scale violence, then nobody, not me, not you, nobody, has any use for modern law. Abrogating law to prevent these things from happening, hell, even committing massacres against their forces, is perfectly acceptable behaviour. Islam does not fight with a distinction between civilians and military. So it's impossible to hit one and not the other. That cannot reasonably result in not hitting them. You may not agree, today, but if these things keep expanding like they have in the last decade, you will agree before another decade passes.

[seanflyon]

> guarantee

What does this mean? Of course no guarantee of safety could be absolute, so how large does the threat have to be for us to give up our basic freedoms? Terrorists are already, for western countries a statistically insignificant threat. Nothing compared to drunk drivers, diabetes, cancer etc.

You are appealing to an irrational fear.

[Alupis]

I disagree. The people making the videos are not in the US or UK. Furthermore, the people making the video are already breaking US and UK laws -- murder. The simple act of making a video (of some kind), posting it, linking to it, nor viewing it are illegal in themselves. However, if the government of the US or UK deem the video content to be "extremist" content, now it becomes illegal to link-to, or view the video? That seems bad to me (censorship). (again, murder is already illegal). Where does it draw the line? What about extremist videos that don't include murder but talk poorly about the US and UK governments and people? Will be deem those to be illegal to view too?

Police can already arrest the people making the videos (if they were in the UK or US) without having to make it a crime to simply view the video.

I don't buy the argument that these videos are propaganda to recruit -- they are there to stir fear and incite the idea that no one will save you if you are captured. The goal of the videos are to bend the public opinion.

The video will only sicken the majority of US and UK citizens -- which will in turn demand direct military action. This is, what both administrations (US and UK) have been trying to avoid recently as both have campaigned in large to avoid any direct use of the military (aka, boots-on-the-ground). It would be bad, politically, to then renege on that and send troops in.

[waps]

I'm not talking about the people making the video. I'm talking about people recruiting new fighters to their cause.

[waps]

> What I find more outrageous was that the reporter apparently was held captive for 2 years... without anyone (in the public) knowing. Bergdahl was held captive for 5 years and luckily was returned in a controversial exchange. What is going on that we are not able to protect and/or recover our people?

I feel like I'm stating the obvious, but here goes : the US cannot protect every one of it's citizens from every external force. Not abroad, and not in America. Terrorist forces who recruit out of a near-global pool of 1 billion muslims, who effectively have presence everywhere, there's no way. If you think about this for 5 minutes, you'd realize that even a genocidal police state wouldn't be able to do that.

> Seems to send a clear message that if you get captured by an extremists group like ISIS, the government won't come running in to save you, nor will the public even know you are missing -- fore the government doesn't want to stir public opinion into favoring some sort of military action. So, in essence -- you are all alone out there, potentially for years, or worse. -- That is outrageous to me.

That's the message islam wants to spread, yes. Of course, the opposite is true [1]. The US military tried to rescue him (and others) and failed due to lacking intelligence.

[1] http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-syria-hosta...

[Alupis]

> Terrorist forces who recruit out of a near-global pool of 1 billion muslims, who effectively have presence everywhere

Just want us to be careful here -- you don't have to be a Muslim to be a terrorist -- and not all terrorist's are Muslims.

[waps]

I'm not arguing otherwise. I fear though, that that distinction only matters as long as the number of terrorists is small enough. Evidently, that number has been growing by a lot. So while I believe that every person has the right to be judged on his own, I fear that we will not realistically have that choice for much longer.