AARTI SHAHANI: The short film that mocks the Prophet Mohammad is staying on YouTube. KQED's Aarti Shahani reports that the company's decision to keep it online is sparking another controversy.

AARTI SHAHANI: The short film blamed for igniting anti-U.S. protests in the Arab world is gaining page views by the minute. YouTube won't pull it from the Internet, but has decided to temporarily restrict access in Libya and Egypt, which are epicenters of conflict.

Hatem Bazian teaches the biography of the Prophet Mohammad at UC Berkeley. Bazian says YouTube should pull the video globally.

HATEM BAZIAN: Take the ethical high ground and say, 'yes, I understand that I have the legal right to do it. But ethically, I need to actually say no to it, because it does not represent the best of our values.' I would say even to put it in the recycling bin would be an insult to the recycling bin.

SHAHANI: But Jennifer Granick at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society says YouTube owes it to Americans and Arab citizens to keep the video online.

JENNIFER GRANICK: We have always in our legal tradition viewed more speech as the remedy for bad speech. This is one of those extreme situations that tests our commitment and our resolve to that principle.

SHAHANI: Google, the parent company of YouTube, censors more than a million sites from its search results every week -- not for moral content, but for copyright infringement.

I'm Aarti Shahani, KQED News.