Occassionally, the New York Times surprises to the upside. Today they delivered a refreshingly candid account of You Tube censorship…
A Slippery Slope of Censorship at YouTube
By TOM ZELLER Jr.
LAST week, as YouTube continued its recent campaign to spit-shine its image and, perhaps, to look a little less ragtag to potential buyers (including Google, which was said to be eyeing the upstart in the $1.6 billion range), the company took a scrub bucket to some questionable political graffiti on its servers, including a video entry from the doyenne of right-wing blogs, Michelle Malkin (michellemalkin.com).
YouTube users can flag any video as containing pornography, mature content or graphic violence, depicting illegal acts or being racially or ethnically offensive. A video is removed â?? as Ms. Malkinâ??s was on Sept. 28 â?? only if a review by the companyâ??s customer support department agrees that it is inappropriate, or that the video is on its face in violation of the siteâ??s terms of use.
But the incident raised some questions about the fine line YouTubeâ??s administrators walk when they decide to respond to usersâ?? complaints about contributions to the site â?? a mechanism that is fraught with the potential for vindictive shenanigans.
Now that Google has bought You Tube, it looks like we can expect more of the same going forward.