Gawker: valleywag, terrorists

YouTube leaves terrorist-training video market to LiveLeak

Paul Boutin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:40:00 EDT

To spell it out: Senator Joe Lieberman and Google timed a press release to the anniversary of the September 11 attacks: "Google Tightens Standards for YouTube Videos in Response to Lieberman's Pressure."

The move seems more politics than pragmatics. Most Al Qaeda videos are posted outside YouTube. LiveLeak has plenty. Lieberman's been after YouTube since May, but the Google-owned site didn't update its community guidelines until the day before 9/11's seventh anniversary, at a time when Al Qaeda's momentum is fading.

Look, I'm as jingoistic as the next guy. But if Lieberman wants to fight Islamic militants on YouTube, what he needs isn't a ban, but a countercampaign: More clips that show insurgents missing the target and running from U.S. troops. I'll bet there's a lot more such footage out there.

Another place Google won't take you

Evelyn Nussenbaum — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:40:20 EST

The Pentagon will not allow Google Earth to show street level views of U.S. military bases, according to the AP saying it could aid terrorists. But Google is not above a bit of censorship itself. Just try and get a close look at the company's new San Francisco offices on Google Maps.

Al Qaeda best viral marketers on Web

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:44:35 EST

How bad do you want to go viral on the Web? Al Qaeda bad? Because I hear the fundamentalist-Islamic terrorist group is the best around at spreading by word of mouse. This according to Gabriel Weimann, professor of communications at the University of Haifa in Israel. Weinman monitors 5,800 militant Islamist sites, and he's got bad news about the terrorists' ability to market themselves on the Web.

They're good at it. "When they target children, they do everything any commercial advertiser would do. They use comic books, storytelling, graphics, movies, competitions, prize-winning and so on," Weimann told WebProNews. So the only question here is why your marketing team isn't learning Arabic, logging on, and taking some serious notes. If they don't improve their viral skills soon, the terrorists will ... no, sorry. I just can't type the words.

(Photo by AP)

Is a there a terrorist in Valley PR?

Nick Douglas — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 15:29:00 EDT

We're all a little jumpy about strangers in this post-9/11 world, and nowhere is tension over immigrants more pronounced than in the Valley, where immigrants run the world (and wash its dishes).

A concerned reader noticed, leafing through Wired Magazine, that one of the role-playing terrorists in a story on military training camps resembled a local Valley PR figure. Could outspoken blogger Jeremy Pepper be an Iraqi collaborationist?

The evidence seemed damning. Pepper is known for popping up suddenly at gatherings full of ~~self-~~important Valley figures with a backpack similar to the one the man above sports.

But Pepper's defense comes in the form of a recent self-portrait. Like any good Valley geek, and unlike his lookalike, Pepper never shows up without his iPod headphones securely in place.

The only terror this man's spreading is the tinny leaked sound of his Black Eyed Peas mp3s.

Baghdad, USA [Wired]
Pop! PR Jots [Pepper's blog]