YouTube Censors Anti-Dem 'Scary Movie' Commercial [Lefty users block non-registered from viewing]

NewsBusters ^ | October 10, 2006

[RatherBiased.com]

The video sharing site YouTube, just recently purchased by Google, has once again allowed a band of determined users to censor something they don't like.

The latest casualty is a a controversial spoof political ad by a Republican filmmaker David Zucker (producer of such films as "Scary Movie 4," "Airplane," among others) which depicts former secretary of state Madeline Albright, a Democrat who served in the Clinton administration, acting as a maid, servant and cheerleader for Islamic terrorists and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. After the Republican party declined to run with it, the ad was sent to Matt Drudge who splashed it worldwide by embedding it in a page on his site.

The story doesn't end there, though. After Drudge picked it up, Democratic YouTube viewers used the site's software to "flag" the video as "inappropriate," a designation usually reserved for extremely violent or sexually explicit video clips. There is nothing even remotely sexual or violent in the clip. 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.

While you can still view the video if you watch it embedded on another web site, if you try to watch it on YouTube, you'll be greeted with the message: "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."

This isn't the first time YouTube's editorial buzzsaw has dismembered conservative and politically incorrect speech. The site has repeatedly pulled videos critical of Islam, and even gone so far as banning popular conservative blogger Michelle Malkin from posting videos. No similarly high-profile liberal or anti-Christian censorship has been reported.

Questions also remain about YouTube's editorial process. It appears that the site allows anything (including sexually suggestive content and entire episodes of television shows) to be posted initially but if too many complaints about a particular clip come in, the software will automatically censor it. Almost certainly what happened with the Zucker ad is that liberal users complained it was "offensive" and managed to get the clip censored automatically.

I'm certain that the site allows administrators to override user votes for and against video clips. Will they do so in a patently obvious case of "flag spam" or will YouTube once again allow angry activists to censor speech they dislike? YouTube put controls on disingenuous users who aren't looking out for objectionable content but instead trying to stifle those with whom they disagree?

Here's a link to Hot Air's embedded version of the ad. Decide for yourself whether the ad is "inappropriate."

[Dustbunny]

Scary movie ad

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***YouTube Censors Anti-Dem 'Scary Movie' Commercial [Lefty users block non-registered from viewing]****

I just spent the last thirty minutes trying to get signed up to see it. All my efforts were rebuffed with these words..
REJECTED. User name must contain letters or words. '' is not a word.

I managed to see it through another site.

You would think they didn't want anyone to see it. There was nothing inapropriate about the add either.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***On Drudge, go to the story and scroll down. Click the arrow on the power plant picture.***

I did that. It took me to the Your tube web site and I spent 30 minutes trying to get signed in, all failures.
When I went back to Drudge It was on!

[John Lenin]

The Albright video is hilarious!! I'm still laughing!

[TASMANIANRED]

Saw it before it was pulled. Was funny...

Weenies.

[Excellence]

Someone will come along to compete with them soon. The fact that YouTube is now owned by a corporation will take the "rebel" veneer off of it, and posters will want a new site to post to.

[patriciamary]

I thought is was great AND TRUTHFUL

[Pravious]

Woah.

It WASN'T pulled.
It WASN'T censored.

People, get a grip.

Because - for whatever reason, it was deemed "offensive", they slapped a "mature audiences only" flag on it, and you have to log in and agree you're over 18 to watch it.

BIG DEAL.

Even if you're not registered with Youtube, you can go to bugmenot.com, and easily retrieve a login to get in with.

But let's not get hyterical here - the ad was neither censored or removed.

And, yes, I, too, think it's very funny and right on target... COME ON, RNC. GROW A PAIR AND RUN THE DAMN THING. THE RATS WOULD CERTAINLY RUN SUCH A THING AGAINST US.

[sizzlemeister]

Why don't Republicans fight fire with fire? Why not get ALL liberal and democrat videos "censored" as well in the same manner they do to us? Perhaps someone could collect a list of the appropriate videos, post the links on a page, and we all just scoot over and start complaining about them.

[dfwgator]

What you said is true, but it sure exemplifies the lefties view of free speech.

[J_Baird]

That would make us no better than them, and I doubt we will do it. Let them say what they will people will see truth for truth and lies for lies.

[SaltyJoe]

It's better to fight fire with Water than with fire. The GOP made a good move.

Why?

Because it reveals more about opposition to free speech and who really opposes it.

Because it reveals more about the same search engine folk that limit intellectual searching capacity when they sell themselves to a Communist nation (will this effect their stock again? will they equally put mature audience flags on all of the Bush parodies?).

This is the same reason why the GOP continually fights a battle that Nature Itself will win--heterosexual Marriage as the building block of society and the need to legally preserve and honor this Sacrament.

Remember how much money Mel Gibson made from the Passion of Christ? After all of the negative press? Even very Islamic Middle East nations were hooked into watching what was suppose to be SOOOOOOO anti-Jewish. Yeah right (sarcasm), the same actor who wears a yamaka in "What Women Want", filmed before "Passion", hates Jews. The logic doesn't compute. What have the anti-Mel Gibson crowd won? What if they actually turned Mel into a real Jew-hater? Then they've only prove that to give enough slaps in the face might infect a boy with the same sins as his old man, "Yeah dad, you were right all along...what a bunch of jerks." Yoowhoo Hollywood. What a crowning achievement your cult has won. You've kept young Americans from outgrowing the hatred of a familiar past...and you got rich doing it too.

The crowd of the common know much better than what elitists have (mis)underestimated.

Thus, what have the real enemies of mankind won? More curious interest in defending our lives and souls? LOL, wouldn't it have been better for them to just shut up and stay in hell?

Fight fire with Water.

[Shermy]

"So typical of these leftwingers to bow to the censorious will of their masters in Peiping."

You're so out of date. It's Peking now.

[sizzlemeister]

"That would make us no better than them, and I doubt we will do it. Let them say what they will people will see truth for truth and lies for lies." With all due respect, that makes us worse than them from a tactical point of view. There is no moral high-ground here - information that favors Republicans and Conservative ideology is being suppressed; if democrat and liberal ideology were suppressed in the same manner then that would simply level the playing field.

[sizzlemeister]

What move have they made? A move that preaches to the choir, perhaps, but nothing that will rise above the din that is election year politics.

Few people outside of hardcore political junkies really understand that the usual liberal slander actually applies to themselves. To the "casual" political observer if you were to say liberals are actually the ones opposed to free speech they'd look at you like a dog being shown a card trick.

IMHO, if ever it were time to take off the gloves it's now. We have between now and 2008 - two Supreme Court seats hang in the balance, not to mention the FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY and perhaps mankind - now is not the time to look upward and trust our good intentions will bear fruit but rather to proactively help ourselves help ourselves.

Paranthetically - I see this forum requires one to help themselves with HTML - HAha, how totally apt. I think I have the hang of it now.

[ChesireKat]

Backup in case it's removed

(Click the pic )

[Washi]

I've seen a very appropriate tag-line here on FreeRepublic..."Nobody hates free speech more than liberals."

[unspun]

The left and the Democratic Party show themselves once again as an effort of the unethical and immoral.

[LikeLight]

Turns out YouTube stopped counting tonight on # of views for this video - - - and they are keeping this video out of their "most viewed" even though the frozen # of 122,051 views should make it #5 on the list!!! And apparently they've also blocked it out of their search feature!!! YouTube has now moved into the realm of suppression and censorship.

[AmericaUnite]

Thanks four the chance to see it. I can't log into YouTube and they say it may be something about my cookies.