OT- YouTube blocked video mocking Clinton administration (liberal censorship)
- From: "Usenet Supreme Commander Chuck" <chuckadams05@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 12 Oct 2006 15:26:55 -0700
The popular video-sharing YouTube site, which is being purchased by
Google for $1.65 billion, limited access to a political ad that mocks
the Clinton administration's policy on North Korea, but contains no
profanity, nudity or other factors generally thought objectionable.
The company announced a "flagging" policy change just this week, about
the time that a controversial spoof by Republican filmmaker David
Zucker depicting former Secretary of State Madeline Albright as a
cheerleader for Islamic terrorists started appearing with a warning
page in front, requiring verification that a viewer is 18 before the
video will appear.
The short film by Zucker, who worked with "Scary Movie 4," "Airplane!"
and other comedies, reportedly had been offered to the Republican Party
for use as an ad, but it was declined. Then it appeared on the Drudge
Report and also on YouTube.
However, after a brief period of accessibility, the verification page
started appearing on YouTube. It asked that: "This video may contain
content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's
user community. To view this video, please verify you are 18 or older
by logging in or signing up." Today the verification page on the spoof
was removed.
Some other YouTube videos on stripping or other explicit activities
have similar advisories; some don't. But the campaign video doesn't
contain any of those typically objectionable items.
It contains depictions and references to Albright and North Korea's Kim
Jong-Il, with Albright presenting the dictator with a basketball and
later singing Kum Ba Yah. At the same time, terrorists are sneaking
past in the background or foreground.
The audio tells that, "Making nice to our enemies will not make them
nice to us," and, "Some people think terrorists will change their ways
if we only show them our good intentions."
The video continues, "But evil exists. History teaches that evil needs
to be confronted. Evil dictators will be evil dictators no matter what
we do.
"The security of the U.S. is not a game. Can we afford a party that
treats it like one?" is how the video concludes.
YouTube's newest posting about such "flagging" came just a few days
ago, as the political ad was making the rounds.
Maryrose, of The YouTube Team, said if any video viewer flags a video
as inappropriate, it is forwarded to a queue for the company's customer
support team to review.
"Videos are NEVER automatically removed simply because they've been
flagged," Maryrose said. "Every single flagged video is reviewed by
someone at YouTube who then determines if the video contains material
that is against our terms of use."
If videos are flagged, viewers must sign in to watch.
And, the company said, sometimes flagged videos follow the companies
guidelines, but "are not quite appropriate for all YouTube users. This
could be due to a number of things - profanity, violence, adult
content etc."
However, the political video contained none of those ingredients,
unless satire also could be considered objectionable.
"The closest thing to an explicit image in the ad is a scene in which
'Albright' bends over and her skirt tears a bit in the seat, hardly the
stuff that sets FCC commissioners' hearts aflutter," said a comment
from Matthew Sheffield on the weblog Newbusters.org.
The commentator noted YouTube has "dismembered conservative and
politically incorrect speech" in the past, pulling videos critical of
Islam and even banning popular conservative blogger Michelle Malkin,
who is also a WND columnist.
Sexually suggestive videos were found on the site unblocked, as were
entire episodes of television shows. So was a clip from a movie
depicting the assassination of President Bush, "Death of a President."
"Perfectly OK to show our soldiers getting killed, but they'll be
damned if they allow that anti-democrat ad," added "Spaceman Spiff" in
a "Newsbusters online dialogue. "This [is] very scary to me. However,
not surprising. But, now that they are owned by Google, we'll certainly
be seeing a lot more of this censoring."
Google has come under its own criticism for holding an
anti-conservative or anti-Republican agenda. It has been criticized in
the past, according to a WND report for hosting "Paiderastia: The Boy
Love Revival" site on its weblog.
It has in the past censored various Christian-themed ads, but allowed
porn ads. In the past it has produced "President Bush" when searchers
hunt for "miserable failure."
And a Google search for "liar" produced as the top choice a site for a
biography for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a close ally with
President Bush in the war on terror.
Sheffield said he believes the intention of YouTube's "censorship
squad" was to limit access. Even though the same video may be available
somewhere else, such as the Drudge Report, "lots of non-political and
moderate folks don't read Drudge, but they might hear about the video
from a friend and try to look it up in the search engine, only to be
foiled in their attempts to decide whether it was truly
'objectionable.'"
jdhawk noted in the Newsbusters dialogue that Rush Limbaugh has been
doing acerbic lampoons of "the Defeatocrats" for some time. "They are
not only hilarious, but get right to the point. Of course, one can only
visualize a scene when listening to one of his barbed zingers. Zucker
has done to video what Rush has been doing to the audio genre. It can
only be hoped that the RNC sees its way to release Zucker's work to a
wider audience."
Bloggers also reported that the Council on American Islamic Relations
has in the past taken steps to have anti-radical Islamist videos pulled
from the YouTube site, and Malkin said she was told her video was
pulled because it was "inappropriate."
The New York Times even was critical of the censorship of Malkin's
piece, titled "First They Came," which talked of authors, politicians
and filmmakers who had been made targets by Islamists.
"This is not to suggest that Ms. Malkin's video would not be
particularly offensive to some people. There is little that Ms. Malkin
says or does that is not. But it is hard to imagine what YouTube hopes
to gain by punting such content, or what sort of uphill rhetoric battle
it is setting itself up for when it does so," the Times report said.
One discussion board contributor responded: "Michelle Malkin offends
people who spend every waking minute, and probably a significant
portion of their dreams, scouring the universe for reasons to be
offended. You only get the big target on your back from the MSM when
you're conservative and you're scoring points on them with impunity. Go
Michelle!"
.
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