ST. PAUL -- Google CEO Eric Schmidt today pleaded ignorance when asked to explain what triggers his company’s YouTube video-sharing site to delete certain videos as “inappropriate” content. “I don’t know enough of the specifics” to tell you what triggers implementation of the policy, Schmidt told Eyeblast.tv, a video-sharing site that the Media Research Center created in part to counter liberal bias at YouTube. He later added that targeted videos typically are flagged and a review group “sort of applies the policy.” Schmidt made the comments after a question-and-answer session with conservative bloggers at the Republican National Convention here. He agreed to the on-camera interview before taping began, but once off camera, Schmidt said he had declined to answer questions about specific conservative videos being yanked from YouTube because he was on tape and wasn’t given advance warning about the subject. The interview came weeks after YouTube yanked a series of videos posted by Live Action Films, a youth-led group that dubs itself “a new media movement for life.” The Live Action content removed by YouTube revealed Planned Parenthood counselors at various facilities agreeing to take contributions to abort black babies. One of the videos had been on YouTube for more than 16 months, and the most recent was four months old. A third video is a clip of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh talking about the videos. Another YouTube user has the same clip on the site, but it hasn’t been removed. YouTube did not warn Live Action about the removals and two weeks later still hasn’t answered queries to explain the decision. Asked about that specific instance, Google’s Schmidt said, “I don’t know the details, but I can certainly look into it.” He gave a similar answer -- “I’ll have to get the details” -- when asked about YouTube’s decision in February to yank another video critical of Planned Parenthood by American Life League. YouTube later restored that video after a public outcry. American Life League is among the groups to join Live Action in condemning Google and YouTube for the latest attack on pro-life content. ALL President Judie Brown said in a press release: “Planned Parenthood has time and again remained true to the identity of its founder, the infamously racist Margaret Sanger. Planned Parenthood was founded to help eliminate the black population and it still is working to reduce the black population. Does YouTube, and its parent company Google, really think this is a good idea?" In June, YouTube was criticized for yanking yet another pro-life video, again without explanation to the creator or a response to the Catholic News Agency when asked about it. Schmidt denied that YouTube’s decisions to remove videos are politically motivated. “There’s plenty of videos being yanked on all sides,” he said without giving any examples. Schmidt added that the company’s policy is “pretty serious ... and it’s getting tighter and tighter as people build more and more sort of strange videos. We’re very concerned about violence; we’re very concerned about various things that can be used to incite bad outcomes.” Ironically, YouTube has been criticized precisely for not removing the kinds of videos Schmidt described -- those uploaded by terrorists. In May, independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, who on Tuesday endorsed Republican John McCain for the presidency in a prime-time speech at the GOP convention, criticized YouTube for not effectively policing terror videos. An entire movement called YouTube Smackdown has emerged to pressure the company to delete such content, but it is often slow to do so. Eyeblast interviewed Schmidt privately after one conservative blogger at the convention grilled him about the Google blocking conservative blogs published on the company’s free Blogger.com service. Matt Sheffield of NewsBusters, a sister site to Eyeblast, also noted that liberals tend to flag conservative videos on YouTube as inappropriate. “It’s perfectly possible for people to try to silence you all, and that’s not OK,” said to Sheffield. “And if we can’t detect it, we need to be able to detect it. That’s a bug.” Schmidt also fielded pointed questions about his company’s support for government regulation of the Internet, its political contributions and its business practices in China. Here are snippets of his interaction at the blogger brunch:
