US senator To Google: Ban Terrorist Content

Last week, Lieberman sent a letter to Google CEO Larry Page on behalf of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that called on Google to ramp up its efforts against terrorist material on the Blogger platform.

Pimentel’s “hate-filled writings” and “bomb-making instruction links” were littered throughout www.trueislam1.com, his Google-hosted Blogger site, Lieberman noted. Pimentel has been accused of attempting to plan what’s being described as a “lone wolf” terrorist attack by using pipe bombs.

“As demonstrated by this recent case, Google’s webhosting site, Blogger is being used by violent Islamist extremists to broadcast terrorist content,” he wrote. “Pimentel’s site is just one of the many examples of homegrown terrorists using Google-hosted sites to propagate their violent ideology.”

Lieberman pointed to YouTube’s Community Standards as a model for Blogger to build its policy after. YouTube, which is run by Google, prohibited terrorist content on its servers in September 2008. In November of last year, Google introduced a flag button on the YouTube platform – something that Lieberman has pushed for in hopes of Blogger preventing a future situation similar to the one involving Pimentel.