Showing posts with label YouTube. Show all posts
Showing posts with label YouTube. Show all posts
Monday, June 17, 2019
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Google's YouTube launches new censorship scheme
Via Drudge: YOUTUBE has been accused of censorship after introducing a controversial new policy designed to reduce the audience for videos deemed to be "inappropriate or offensive to some audiences".
The Google-owned video site is now putting videos into a "limited state" if they are deemed controversial enough to be considered objectionable, but not hateful, pornographic or violent enough to be banned altogether.
This policy was announced several months ago but has come into force in the past week, prompting anger among members of the YouTube community.
The Sun Online understands Google and YouTube staff refer to the tactic as "tougher treatment".
One prominent video-maker slammed the new scheme whilst WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange described the measures as "economic censorship".
However, YouTube sees it as a way of maintaining freedom of speech and allowing discussion of controversial issues without resorting to the wholesale banning of videos.
Videos which are put into a limited state cannot be embedded on other websites.
They also cannot be easily published on social media using the usual share buttons and other users cannot comment on them.
The Google-owned video site is now putting videos into a "limited state" if they are deemed controversial enough to be considered objectionable, but not hateful, pornographic or violent enough to be banned altogether.
This policy was announced several months ago but has come into force in the past week, prompting anger among members of the YouTube community.
The Sun Online understands Google and YouTube staff refer to the tactic as "tougher treatment".
One prominent video-maker slammed the new scheme whilst WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange described the measures as "economic censorship".
However, YouTube sees it as a way of maintaining freedom of speech and allowing discussion of controversial issues without resorting to the wholesale banning of videos.
Videos which are put into a limited state cannot be embedded on other websites.
They also cannot be easily published on social media using the usual share buttons and other users cannot comment on them.
(Link to more)
Friday, January 29, 2016
"Forget Cat Videos: YouTube is Powered by Schadenfreude"
Acculturated: Acting out in public means always having to say you’re sorry — at least if your actions are captured on video and posted online. (video at the link)....
She got drunk; she had a public tantrum. She launched an unprovoked attack on a man who was just trying to do his job. It’s hard not to sympathize with those who argue that this form of digilante justice offers swift, sure punishment to the entitled and badly behaved. We’ve replaced the public stocks in the town square with YouTube video shaming, a harsh but effective form of justice.
Ramkissoon at least had the opportunity to try to redeem herself by offering a nationally broadcast apology (she appeared on Good Morning America and declared, “I’m ashamed”; one imagines that had she not been a privileged medical resident, she’d have been giving that interview from the county jail, not across a table from George Stephanopoulus, but no matter).
And yet, those of us who film and watch these meltdowns aren’t entirely without fault either. YouTube is powered by schadenfreude, and ours is an era that has embraced a new voyeuristic bystander effect that encourages us to watch the shameful acts of others while reassuring ourselves that we would never do such a thing.
Perhaps we wouldn’t, but let he who has never had a bad day and said regrettable things in public cast the first stone.
Ramkissoon will soon fade from public memory, to be replaced by the next rude person unfortunate enough to have his or her behavior captured by a phone. But what shouldn’t fade is this question: Is this the kind of justice we want to encourage, one that rejects empathy for immediacy and forgiveness for shaming?
She got drunk; she had a public tantrum. She launched an unprovoked attack on a man who was just trying to do his job. It’s hard not to sympathize with those who argue that this form of digilante justice offers swift, sure punishment to the entitled and badly behaved. We’ve replaced the public stocks in the town square with YouTube video shaming, a harsh but effective form of justice.
Ramkissoon at least had the opportunity to try to redeem herself by offering a nationally broadcast apology (she appeared on Good Morning America and declared, “I’m ashamed”; one imagines that had she not been a privileged medical resident, she’d have been giving that interview from the county jail, not across a table from George Stephanopoulus, but no matter).
And yet, those of us who film and watch these meltdowns aren’t entirely without fault either. YouTube is powered by schadenfreude, and ours is an era that has embraced a new voyeuristic bystander effect that encourages us to watch the shameful acts of others while reassuring ourselves that we would never do such a thing.
Perhaps we wouldn’t, but let he who has never had a bad day and said regrettable things in public cast the first stone.
Ramkissoon will soon fade from public memory, to be replaced by the next rude person unfortunate enough to have his or her behavior captured by a phone. But what shouldn’t fade is this question: Is this the kind of justice we want to encourage, one that rejects empathy for immediacy and forgiveness for shaming?
Sunday, December 27, 2015
The Cautionary Tale of La Befana
I posted that video a few years ago. It has over 83,000 views and is by far the most popular thing I've ever produced.
Yet, it's interesting that such a benevolent cautionary tale garnered 15 "thumbs downs." Skimming the comments, I see that a disgruntled few were chafed and not chuffed that the recording claims the La Befana legend is relived each year on January 5th and not on January 6th -- the true Epiphany). The truth is that like St. Nicholas' Day (December 6th), children celebrate the day before (la befana is Italian dialect or childspeak for la epifana -- the Epiphany. Dutch kids put their little shoes out the night of December 5th and Italian kids put hang out their calzones on January 5th. Of course, the Holy days are the calendar holidays.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
F'd up Christmas movies
Smosh appears among top ten most popular YouTube accounts. A California comedy duo going on for some ten years. They're good. The article is about YouTube being twenty years old and having produced several millionaires. The list is everywhere online, even Wikipedia.
One of the schools I went to sticks out of the lot as the most fun school of all. It was not the best equipped, in fact, the classrooms were in a WWII Japanese barracks remade into larger rooms. The teachers were from everywhere. Their interest in doing something with the American kids was tremendous. One of the 6th grade teachers who incidentally took us on a field trip to see King Tut exhibition also had us contrive skits and act them out in front of the class. A group of us realized the more skits we contrived the longer we could go on then the less classwork there would be for all of us to do, so everyone was for it. Most of our skits were just acting out stupid jokes. A lot of our material inspired by Mad magazine. Our stuff was dumb but the teacher, a hard-nose Japanese national who considered American kids absurd and wanted our English and our maths to be at the next level, also loved having us make up crap and acting it out. Making up kids comedy skits so the teacher wasn't entirely hard. That is what this video reminds me of.
One of the schools I went to sticks out of the lot as the most fun school of all. It was not the best equipped, in fact, the classrooms were in a WWII Japanese barracks remade into larger rooms. The teachers were from everywhere. Their interest in doing something with the American kids was tremendous. One of the 6th grade teachers who incidentally took us on a field trip to see King Tut exhibition also had us contrive skits and act them out in front of the class. A group of us realized the more skits we contrived the longer we could go on then the less classwork there would be for all of us to do, so everyone was for it. Most of our skits were just acting out stupid jokes. A lot of our material inspired by Mad magazine. Our stuff was dumb but the teacher, a hard-nose Japanese national who considered American kids absurd and wanted our English and our maths to be at the next level, also loved having us make up crap and acting it out. Making up kids comedy skits so the teacher wasn't entirely hard. That is what this video reminds me of.
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