Google's YouTube faces trouble in Brazil over video clips

A Brazilian court is giving Google-owned YouTube 10 days to remove an anti-Islam video that has ignited protests worldwide or it will order the video sharing website to pay a series of fines, according to the AP.

If YouTube does not comply with the court order, the Sao Paulo court said it will be slapped with a $5,000 fine each day that video clips of the "Innocence of Muslims" movie trailer are available on the video platform, the AP report said. The video is believed to have sparked violent protests targeted at U.S. embassies abroad, including in Libya and Egypt.  

The court is taking action against YouTube after a Brazilian Muslim group filed a suit, the AP said.

The video clip, which mocks the Prophet Muhammad, has been condemned by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other top U.S. officials.

Brazil is one of a series of countries that has called on YouTube to remove the controversial trailer from its site. Saudi Arabia and Russia have urged YouTube to pull clips of the video from its site, while Sudan, Afghanistan and other countries have taken steps to block access to the Google-owned video sharing site, Reuters has reported.

YouTube has blocked the video in Egypt, Libya, India and Indonesia in light of the violent protests, according to Reuters.

But that's not the only trouble facing YouTube's business in Brazil. A judge from the Mato Grosso do Sul state in Brazil has called for the arrest of the head of Google's operations in the country after the site refused to take down two videos attacking a mayoral candidate, the AP reported. Brazil has stringent laws restricting the type of content critics can air on TV about a candidate before an election, the AP said.

A Google spokesman said the company plans to fight the court's decision.

“We are appealing a court’s decision to remove a video from YouTube because, as a platform, we are not responsible for the content uploaded to our site,” the Google spokesman said in an email to The Hill.  

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