When he wasn’t smoking pot with the New York Police Department’s confidential informant or trying to manually cut off the tip of his penis, “lone wolf” terror suspect Jose Pimentel was running a jihadist website on Google’s Blogger platform.
Now Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) wants Google to implement a policy explicitly banning terrorist material on their Blogger servers and set up a YouTube-style “flag” system to bring such material to Google’s attention.
TPM obtained a letter sent by Lieberman, chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, to Google CEO Larry Page on Tuesday calling for him to make some changes to their policy.
“Pimentel’s Internet activity — both his spreading of bomb-making instructions links and his hate-filled writings — were hosted by Google,” Lieberman wrote.
“On his site www.trueislam1.com, Pimentel stated, “People have to understand that America and its allies are legitimate targets in warfare. This includes facilities such as army bases, police stations, political facilities, embassies, CIA and FBI buildings, private and public airports, and all kinds of buildings where money is being made to help fund the war.’ As demonstrated by this recent case, Google’s webhosting site, Blogger is being used by violent Islamist extremists to broadcast terrorist content,” Lieberman continued.
Unlike YouTube’s Community Standards, Lieberman writes, “Blogger’s Content Policy does not expressly ban terrorist content nor does it provide a ‘flag’ feature for such content.”
He continues: “Through your updated YouTube standards, Google has affirmatively stated that terrorist content will not be permitted on some of your sites. I strongly believe that Google should expand that standard to include your other platforms.”
A Google spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pimentel’s website was still online as of Tuesday afternoon.
