On User Submitted Video and Our Terms of Service

This morning, one of our members submited a story with the sole purpose of using the comments to allege that he had been censored by Netscape anchors due to our political bias. We closed that post because the intent of the post had nothing to do with the article the post linked to. I'm writing this blog entry to try to answer that user's allegations.

Yesterday, the Netscape member in question submitted a video titled "Die Taliban Die". The video was set to song in which the phrase "die motherf****er die" was repeated over and over again; the images involved war footage and titles reading "die terrorist die". The video was reported as offensive, and as it violated our Terms of Use (see specifically section 8), we removed it (see Terms of Use, section 13). The Netscape member asked why his video was taken down, and was told by an Anchor that the title violated our Terms of Use. The member then reposted the video, unaltered but for a new title; it was reported again, and as the video still contained content that violated our terms of use, we pulled the video again.

At Netscape, we do not censor user submitted content based on our own personal biases or whims. We do pull down user submitted content that is deemed by a significant sample of our members as offensive, in terms of language or theme. A video that advocates the killing of any person or group fits the definition of "offensive" for a significant sample of our users.