Posted on 02/18/2008 7:05:30 AM PST by The Ghost of JG
Over the past week an unprecedented level of attention has been received by my YouTube channel, where for several months we have hosted a powerful video documenting torture and abuse of prisoners in Yekaterinaburg. For more than 60 days, the controversial video had about 6,500 views, but after a Wall Street Journal article about Lev Ponomarev linked to it, within days there were more than 30,000 views and hundreds of comments.
However yesterday I received the following notification in my email inbox:
Dear Member: After being flagged by members of the YouTube community and reviewed by YouTube staff, the video below has been removed due to its inappropriate nature.
(Excerpt) Read more at speroforum.com ...
Where the heck is Yekaterinaburg?
Please note the correct spelling is Yekaterinburg.
It’s a good thing they didn’t show prisoners with panties on their heads.
That’s not censorship. That’s a bunch of nuts going there and flagging the video. That’s what the left does.
The last time I checked, YouTube was privately owned and therefore, private property, much like FR.
The last time I checked, owners of private web sites are allowed to control the content of their web sites and to remove content they find objectionable.
There’s nothing stopping this fellow from creating his own website and posting his video there instead.
They also censored pro-life videos last week while leaving
the pro-abort “Mile High” clip that was criticized on the site till they were exposed for their obvious bias:
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=11758
However, youtube's guidelines need to be equally applied and not doing so is illegal.
Illegal? How so?
Among Youtube's users there likely those who live in one.
Yeah, but it’s easier to whine and moan and becoming a victim of you tube policy.
I believe there are laws that prohibit a business from offering services with conditions and then allowing some, but not others to violate those conditions.
In this example, the video was removed for its inappropriate nature Even though there are numerous other videos of equal inappropriateness that are never removed.
YouTube has repeatedly shown leftist bias in what it censors and what it allows.
The most egregious example is that they censored a pro-life video that used EXTRACTS from a pro-abortion video to make its point, claiming that it was too violent. Yet they left up the original pro-abortion video from which those extracts were taken.
Sure, they could say that they are a leftist organization, and that conservative videos will be removed. But they claim to be politically neutral and give demonstrably lying reasons for removing videos.
They have also removed videos that told the truth about Scientology, and videos that told the truth about Islamism.
I’m not sure if that is illegal or not, but I think it is illegal, because it involves false advertising and discriminatory enforcement of their supposed rules.
BTW the article’s author is a lawer of well-known imprisoned Russian tycoon Khodorkovsky. This fact is worth mentioning, regardless what do you think about it.
You are missing the point ODT. Yes, YouTube has a legal right to post what they want. Other people also have a right to publicize YouTube’s actions and question their motivations. If there are various political or other biases at play regarding YouTube’s posting policies then YouTube users have a right to publicize these.
I’m not sure it’s illegal, either. I suspect it’s not because it’s a privately-owned site.
I liken the situation to the one I find here on this site. In the case of FR, it’s Jim’s site. He can ban anyone he wants for any reason he wants. Similarly, he can remove any content he finds objectionable.
And, like FR, if anyone finds these policies too onerous, they are free to create a web site and post whatever they want there, instead. IOW, it’s his way or the highway.
It certainly would be difficult to do business or buy services in that environment and I could see where another business might spring up to offer services with more clearly defined and adhered to conditions.
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