Google and the video that enraged Muslims

How did a film trailer that lived in well-deserved obscurity on Youtube turn into something altogether different?    On television screens, the story looked like round two of the Arab Spring - only the targets of the demonstrations were not presidential palaces, but the various embassies of an American government that had absolutely nothing to do with the offending film. The story was also reminiscent of the unrest provoked in 2006 by the publication of those Danish cartoons. But this time around, Google had a pivotal role to play. Google, which owns Youtube, resisted pleas to take the film down, yet it did block access to it in parts of the Muslim world and left it up to governments to do the rest. Then there is the role of the Egyptian TV channel that took a video that lived in well-deserved obscurity on Youtube and turned it into something else entirely.