<videovortex> The Innocence Video: Commentary

[Dr. Strangelove]

The following is from my forthcoming book on the future of television:

Global Conflict

The television system of the 20th century was controlled by 
authoritarian or paternalistic states and by major corporations (with 
the state playing a lesser role). In both cases the result was the same 
– audiences had limited access to content. Each system of control 
limited different types of content for different reasons. Over time the 
globalization of the marketplace along with the deployment of cable and 
satellite expanded the variety of content available to audiences in 
statist and market-based television systems but both systems continue to 
exercise considerable influence over what the audience can and cannot see.

The simple fact that television and movies have always been subjected to 
varying degrees of censorship and controlled distribution has tremendous 
implications for a post-television age that is characterized by 
uncontrolled audiences and content. Content is not merely a neutral 
product of a communication system. Content carries meanings. Meanings 
shape behaviour and behaviour must be managed within capitalism. Thus 
for any type of contemporary social order, statist, capitalist, or 
otherwise, the flow of uncontrolled video content across the globe 
represents a potential loss of control over mass behaviour. We are 
beginning to witness the implications of a new type of television system 
wherein video content flows across borders and evades the local 
regulatory regime. When populations are exposed to video content that 
contradicts their local belief system the result is often conflict and 
violence.

In September 2012 violence once again spread across the Arab world 
because of content on the Internet. A movie trailer for a D-list movie 
Innocence of Muslims that ridicules the Prophet Muhammad was posted to 
YouTube and led to riots in Libya and Egypt. The producer of the film, 
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula is a Coptic Christian living in southern 
California who is on probation after his conviction for financial 
crimes. According to Khaled Elgindy, the video was made by ‘a handful of 
Christian extremists’ and eventually found its way over the Internet to 
Muslim extremists in Egypt. Prior to the video coming to the attention 
of people in Libya it existed in obscurity until a version was dubbed in 
Arabic. YouTube refused to remove the video after determining that, 
according to its own guidelines, the video was not hate speech. YouTube 
released the following statement to CNN,

"We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also 
enables people to express different opinions. This can be a challenge 
because what’s OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video 
– which is widely available on the Web – is clearly within our 
guidelines and so will stay on YouTube. However, given the very 
difficult situation in Libya and Egypt we have temporarily restricted 
access in both countries."

According to the New York Times, ‘Millions of people across the Muslim 
world, though, viewed the video as one of the most inflammatory pieces 
of content to circulate on the Internet. From Afghanistan to Libya, the 
authorities have been scrambling to contain an outpouring of popular 
outrage over the video and calling on the United States to take measures 
against its producers.’ Google temporarily blocked access to the video 
in Egypt, Libya, India, and Indonesia but did not remove the video. Even 
a request from the White House failed to convince Google to remove the 
video. If Google did remove the video it would still be available on 
numerous other Web sites.

Blocking access was widely seen as an ineffectual method of preventing 
people in Egypt or elsewhere from viewing the video. The simple fact of 
the matter is that once a video is popular or controversial no company 
or country can remove it from the Web or prevent Internet users from 
seeing it. Within a few days after the initial riots in Egypt and Libya 
violent protests had spread to nearly 20 countries, from North Africa to 
Indonesia. Meanwhile views of the trailer for Innocence of Muslims grew 
from 122,000 to over 7 million within three days. A version the trailer 
that was given Arabic subtitles garnered over 3 million views in three 
days with Egypt providing the most viewers. Within a week total views 
for all the various versions of the trailer had grown from a few 
thousand to over 25 million viewers.

Numerous nations frequently request that Google remove content. Often 
Google complies with such requests but not always. When a Canadian made 
a video that depicted himself urinating on his passport and flushing it 
down the toilet Google refused the Canadian government’s request to 
remove the video. Likewise, corporations make frequent requests for 
videos to be taken down, requests that go far beyond copyright concerns, 
and Google may or may not remove the video in question. In every case 
where a video is removed, if the audience demands to see it online it 
will be found somewhere else. Often, censorship is ineffectual within 
the Internet.

The significance of Innocence of Muslims goes far beyond its content, 
which is little more than poorly-acted inflammatory bigotry. In the 
aftermath of the Arab Spring, the democratic awakening of 2011, there is 
a power struggle in the Middle East over who will control various 
countries. New Islamist leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are using 
anti-American sentiment to gain popular support but also need to 
acknowledge long-standing international commitments with nations such a 
Britain and the United States. The United States needs to reign in 
anti-American sentiment in Egypt to protect the peace treaty between 
Egypt and Israel. No country has had to deal with a flood of 
uncontrolled content flowing across its borders to the degree that is 
happening in the Internet age.

This incident demonstrates how uncontrolled content can lead one culture 
to react violently to another culture’s values. The notion of rights and 
freedoms differs greatly between the west and the east, with the west 
emphasizing the primacy of an individual’s rights while Egyptians, for 
example, ‘put a greater emphasis on the rights of communities, families 
and religious groups.’ Under the content regime of the 20th century 
television system cultural groups were kept in relative isolation from 
each other but this isolation is breaking down under the global flow of 
Internet content. As a result, conflict over differing values, 
particularly between the secular (and significantly Christian) west and 
the Muslim east, is growing. There is also no small amount of resentment 
among the Egyptian population over the 30 years of American support for 
the brutal Mubarak dictatorship. In such a context rife with historical 
grievances and cultural differences and otherwise obscure and meritless 
video can become consequential. A video that would otherwise most likely 
have been seen by very few became President Obama’s ‘most serious 
foreign policy crisis of the election season.’

The YouTube video did not create the tensions between various religious 
groups. In Egypt Muslims and Coptic Christians have been bickering 
violently for centuries. Various parties created the video and then used 
it to inflame conflict, ‘the video was given prominence in Egypt when a 
clip from it was screened on the Al-Nas television channel by the 
conservative Muslim host Sheikh Khaled Abdalla.’ Sarah Carr, an 
Egyptian-British journalist, described the sheikh as ‘part of a school 
of particularly shrill religious demagogues who turn every possible 
event into an attack on Islam.’ By September 14 the protests spread and 
the New York Times reported that ‘protests appeared to reflect a pent-up 
resentment of Western powers in general . . . The anger stretched from 
North Africa to South Asia and Indonesia and in some cases was 
surprisingly destructive.’ In the words of Issandr El Amrani, ‘The 
resulting cascade of outrage is now predictable: Islamophobes in the 
West will say “we told you they’re fanatics” and the crowd-riling 
demagogues here will say “we told you they disrespect us.”’

Dr. Strangelove
September 2012


Dr. Strangelove
University of Ottawa
www.strangelove.com