Zeenews Bureau
San Francisco: In spite of the widespread violence fuming in the Muslim world over an anti-Islam film, Google on Saturday rejected a request by US officials to take the movie clips on YouTube, off the web.
The 14 minutes movie clip named “Innocence of Islam” that projects Prophet Muhammad as a fraud and philanderer, is being deemed highly objectionable by the Muslims across the world, resulting in intensely violent protests against Western Embassies.
US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens along with four American colleagues was killed in Libya on Wednesday when protesters enraged over the anti-Muslim film raided the US Embassy there.
Following this, Google blocked the reportedly provocative film’s access to people in Egypt and Libya, but stopped short of taking the content off the web.
Rejecting the request by the White House in a statement on Wednesday, Google, which owns YouTube, said on Wednesday, "This video - which is widely available on the Web - is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube," Google said in a statement.
"We've restricted access to it in countries where it is illegal such as India and Indonesia, as well as in Libya and Egypt, given the very sensitive situations in these two countries," the company said.
White House officials had asked Google earlier on Friday to reconsider whether the video had violated YouTube's terms of service.
Google’s decision has again brought to focus the dangerous domino effect of the social media.
With Agency Inputs
First Published: Saturday, September 15, 2012, 11:38