The White House has asked YouTube to review whether the sick anti-Muslim flick “Innocence of Muslims” violates content policy — but stopped short of asking that it be scrubbed from the Web site.
The request by a member of the National Security Council staff came amid continued protests and outbreaks of violence at US consulates and embassies across the Middle East.
Officials “reached out to YouTube to call their attention and ask them to review whether it violates their terms of use,” an NSC spokesman said. YouTube owner Google, which earlier this week blocked access to the video in Egypt and Libya, was not asked to take it down here.
A US blackout of the film would require it to contain certain pornographic or violent content, and Google, which owns the site, has said the video doesn’t meet that criterion.
The White House has blasted the film as “disgusting” but noted its makers are protected by the First Amendment.
Protests exploded across the Mideast after the film was dubbed into Arabic and posted online last week. Riots over the low-budget movie may have been used as a cover by terrorists to launch the rocket attack that killed US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
In other developments, a federal probation office in California confirmed yesterday it is investigating whether filmmaker Nakoula Nakoula violated probation with the Internet movie posting.
Meanwhile, the film’s producer/director yesterday was revealed to be soft-core porn producer Alan Roberts, whose real name is Robert Brownell.
Roberts is said to be in hiding, but his business partner confirmed Roberts directed the movie and didn’t know the flick was anti-Muslim.
“They redubbed it,” the partner said. “Of course, Alan had nothing to do with it.”