Gonna go off on a wall-of-text rant here about something I just read about Youtube today: So today I learned that Youtube is going to be allowing Government Agencies and Non-Government Organizations to become Super Flaggers with the ability to bulk-flag videos for Youtube to review and pull from the site. I honestly wonder how much crap people are seriously gonna be force-fed before they say enough is enough? news.cnet/8301-1023_3-57620454-93/youtube-enrolls-super-flaggers-to-watch-for-offending-videos/ Heres the report on the change I read in case youre wondering. Essentially Youtube will be issuing in a Super-Flagger system where 200 individuals will be dedicated to watching and flagging videos that are against Youtubes content guidelines and sending them in for Youtube to review, however, when you read through the entire thing you will notice that there is a line that states less than nine of these indivituals will be government agencies or non-government organizations. Now, those of you who know Youtube good and well over the past 7+ years have noticed that Google is the freakin go-to guy when you need a prime example for the definition of Yes-Man or Brown-Noser. Just look at how theyve willingly bent-over to the music and movie industry and allow them to take them up the hind-quarters over copyright material over nearly the past decade, they dont so much as protest, they just assume the position, no questions asked. Now they are allowing government officials and big-name companies actively go through and flag videos for youtube to review, which essentially gives them the right to basically censor the entirety of Youtube. But theres less than 10 of them. Some might say. You are right, but the wording of the youtube newsletter has been proven to be a vague representation, they have said that one government agency like, lets say for example, the FBI would be counted as one individual. Yes, the entire agency, and all of its employees, is considered a single individual with super-flagging abilities. And that is just 1 of the less than ten, so let that sink in a little, when you start to add on lets say the ASPCA, ACLU, NSA...thats only four individuals according to Youtube which consists of thousands of employees and you can be willing to bet they will have a section of people dedicated to sifting through the entirety of Youtube flagging videos. But theyre just flagging material for Youtube to review, Youtube still gets the final say, right? Yeah, they do, but look at Googles track record considering Youtube with my statement above about the whole copyright stuff. Considering that, out of the 200 individual super-flaggers, which ones do you think will carry the most weight? The 190+ normal super-flaggers or the less-than 10 who carry money, political power, and media wieght? And Youtubes Community Guidelines wont mean a thing when it comes to people like that, especially with the way Google handles things (again note my earlier example with the music and movie industry). So what effects will this have on the typical youtube user? My guess is, expect to see a lot of videos get pulled and blocked for who-knows-what reason, given the recent history of youtube and their Content ID hoggwash. That awesome critique video you watched that was stating facts and their educated opinion about this or that government agency? Blocked for inciting terrorist claims. That one guys video voicing his opinion about a major court case that he posted to let off steam? Blocked due to hate-speech. Not to mention the ill effect this is going to have on the actual content creators themselves. Now they will be posting up videos with the fact that they have these government agencies and big organizations looking over their shoulder at the stuff they create and post. You can probably expect stuff like that to be the norm on Youtube from now on. And here I thought that the whole Google+ B.S. was the worst, but they managed to surprise me even more. What can we do? Other than informing people, and spreading the word, I honestly dont know. Youtube is the biggest streaming video sites out there practically the only one, and they seem hell-bent on forcing all its viewers and content creators away. Less traffic to youtube means less income google will be getting from it, and money seems to be the biggest voice Google listens to apparently (its definitely not the end-user, and sure as heck isnt the content creators). So spread the word about it, and avoid Youtube whenever possible, though I know that last part is asking a lot. Other than that? Hope they change this crap, though I highly doubt thats going to happen after Google completely ignored the massive outcry over the Google+ ordeal. Its either that or happily eat this new spoon full of B.S. Google is trying to jam down our necks.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 23:21:38 +0000
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