Youtube vs free speech
10:55 October 17, 2009
News & Politics
Thunderf00t
Some time ago I instigated an action against youtube by releasing the videos called
Youtube versus the Users Part 1, 2 and 3.
The videos all got 10s of thousands of hits and were mirrored by those who supported the cause hundreds of times.
Now if you type the exact title into the youtube search engine, I get nothing at all. I have talked to people all over the world and this is about what 50 % of the people find.
This is a pretty Orwellian re-write of history, and there is only one appropriate action that anyone who desires to protect free speech could engage in, and thats to call bullshit on youtube.
However this pattern is something that is of wider concern.
Youtube has effectively a monopoly on the user based video market. The fact that they are willing to manipulate that system to their advantage opens essentially establishes this as a source of corruption waiting to emerge. Some form of oversight is required.
As users, one mechanism by which you can apply pressure on youtube is by videos such as this. In essence keeping youtube on its toes by ensuring that they realize that there are many vigilant eyes on them, who will cause a public relations disaster for them if they are willing to bastardize the fair and level playing field for their financial gain.
I think it very likely that youtubes beta channels also border on market abuse.
They have taken a user base that was built up on essentially viral dendritic navigation and morphed it into something that looks very much like a commercial video distribution network. Now thats not so bad in itself, but to say that it was done for the users benefit is of course bullshit- dont spit on my cupcake and tell me its frosting!. Similarly actions like these simply do not gel well with corporate slogans like dont be evil. Indeed, if anything this fills me with concern over the lack of accountability and power of organization such as google.
To a very large degree, if google wipes anything you create from its search engines, then that information effectively cannot be found, and effectively doesnt exist anymore.
The information age is here. To an extent we already live in 1984. Someone has to control the search engines, and the access to data. However to have corporate monopolies with little or no accountability is clearly a very dangerous path to tread.
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