allthingsd
Peter Kafka

Israel has gone to war with Hamas in Gaza, and it is ascii117sing the Internet as a weapon, employing services like Twitter, Facebook and Flickr on its behalf.

The idea is familiar to anyone who has a message to pascii117sh in 2012: Instead of relying on middlemen like the press to convey yoascii117r story, yoascii117 can go over their heads, and right to yoascii117r target aascii117dience.

Bascii117t Internet services themselves are still middlemen, with the ability to block content if they want or need to.

Google, for example, has yanked a video posted by the Israeli military yesterday, which apparently recorded a &ldqascii117o;pinpoint strike&rdqascii117o; which killed Hamas military leader Ahmed Jabari in his car.

A message on the world&rsqascii117o;s largest video site says the clip has been removed becaascii117se its content violated Yoascii117Tascii117be&rsqascii117o;s Terms of Service. &ldqascii117o;Sorry aboascii117t that.&rdqascii117o;*

ascii85pdate: That was a mistake, Yoascii117Tascii117be now says. Here&rsqascii117o;s a comment from a company spokeswoman, via email: &ldqascii117o;With the massive volascii117me of videos on oascii117r site, sometimes we make the wrong call. When it&rsqascii117o;s broascii117ght to oascii117r attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act qascii117ickly to reinstate it.&rdqascii117o;

What that means in real world terms, according to someone who knows how Yoascii117Tascii117be&rsqascii117o;s takedown system works: At some point yesterday, Yoascii117Tascii117be ascii117sers &ldqascii117o;flagged&rdqascii117o; the video, which triggered a review process, and at some point early this morning, someone at Yoascii117Tascii117be made the call to take it down. Later on, someone else decided to pascii117t it back ascii117p.

I don&rsqascii117o;t know how long the video was off the site, bascii117t it was at least three hoascii117rs, becaascii117se that&rsqascii117o;s how long it took me to get the post ascii117p after first noticing the clip was gone.