Do you trust YouTube?

1 - YouTube is a saint!

3 (4%)

2 - When they censor something, they're right to do so.

4 (5.3%)

3 - I never had any problems with YouTube.

11 (14.7%)

4 - YouTube is OK for non-objectionable video.

15 (20%)

5 - YouTube is a dangerous centralization of online power, but it's the only decent way to share video.

13 (17.3%)

6 - All things being equal, I'd rather get a video on P2P than on YouTube.

9 (12%)

7 - I'd wait 10 min extra to get a video through P2P.

2 (2.7%)

8 - I'd wait an hour extra to get a video through P2P.

3 (4%)

9 - I'd wait an extra day to get a video through P2P.

2 (2.7%)

10 - Fuck YouTube!

13 (17.3%)

Total Members Voted: 35

[AlexLibman]

When video hosting sites like YouTube and Google Video emerged on the scene, their growth came at the expense of decentralized P2P networks.  Some online freedom activists are discouraging their use, claiming that it centralizes too much power over Internet's content, making it controllable by large corporate interests that have historically given in to government's demands.

Due to the torrent effect, if as many people used P2P networks instead of YouTube, the speed and convenience of video access through them could become almost as good, and without the ads.  It would also make it impossible for any centralized authority to control which information is proliferated.

Here's one example for YouTube censorship [just mentioned on SlashDot.org] --

[YouTube, a] Google property, has recently banned the popular atheist commentator Nick Gisburne. Gisburne had been posting videos with logical arguments against Christian beliefs; but when he turned his attention to Islam (mirror of Gisburne's video by another user), YouTube pulled the plug, saying: '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. Due to your repeated attempts to upload inappropriate videos, your account now been permanently disabled, and your videos have been taken down.'

[/list][/list]

These kinds of examples of videos being removed for political reasons have been very rare so far, but this is characteristic of the "long leash" mode of media censorship that is common in the United States: don't make any martyrs unless you absolutely have to, trivialize and water things down instead, but always retain the power to pull the plug.

Maybe this is an effect of natural selection, with the more freedom oriented users preferring to share content the decentralized way, or maybe it is subtle foul play, but it has been my observation that the unpopular opinions that are most easily dismissable (ex. Loose Change) attain disproportionate success on sites like Google Video, and steal the spotlight from more substantive ones.

Like the disrephrency between mainstream media and shortwave radio, online multimedia content distribution has effectively been cut in two pieces, with the more mainstream topics proliferating on YouTube-type sites and more controversial "free speech" topics proliferating on small BitTorrent trackers, access to which some ISP's already choke due to allegations that P2P is only good for piracy...

[error]

You could have provided a link...

Anyway, YouTube has been doing this for quite a while, with respect to videos about radical Islamists. Unfortunately, all of the videos that were pulled, that I've seen, were pulled for other "reasons" (like copyright) so that they could deny censoring.

The problem with peer-to-peer video distribution is that you can't stream it. It's something you are going to have to wait a few minutes or hours for.

[EternityAblaze]

Youtube is decent but it would be a hellalot better without its censorship.  Everything would be better without censorship.  Banning videos about anti-islam is pretty ridiculous. 

[lordmetroid]

Agreed, like everything internet it would be better to decentralize it so the users are in controll and we who uses it pays by our own.

[bonerjoe]

Flash-based video just sucks. They need to get some XviD in there.

[AlexLibman]

You could have provided a link...

Link added, sorry.

The problem with peer-to-peer video distribution is that you can't stream it. It's something you are going to have to wait a few minutes or hours for.

Yeah, but eventually there'd be ways around that.  A browser plug-in would need to be used instead of Flash, but that would have added advantages, including being able to export the video easily and not lose what you downloaded between page load sessions.  BitTorrent gets the pieces in random order to make sure the whole file completes, but an ideal protocol for P2P video streaming (peercasting) would do things differently to make sure it starts playing as quickly as possible.  RSS feeds would result in "first seeders" starting to download videos that match their interests as soon as they're posted, filling out the seeder mesh by the time the typical user requests that video, and a "pre-download videos my friends have liked" feature would go even further.

And it doesn't have to be pure P2P: stable servers can be used to get things off the ground and for fall-back, especially for the first few chunks.  After all, the bandwidth cost for that would be pretty low compared to hosting the full file to each and every user that downloads it.  Those stable servers could be plain `ol FTP servers optimized for dropped transfers and resumes (segmented downloading), and they can be decentralized through a checksum-based file search engine.  Competition for on-demand high-bandwidth FTP hosting would drive the speed ever higher and prices ever lower.

[Taors]

I love it. I don't see any problem with it whatsoever.

[error]

Yeah, now build it.

[AlexLibman]

Absence of software technology isn't the bottleneck, absence of social awareness of the problem is.  And it looks like the bad guys are already preparing to tighten their grip.


An Associated Press article getting top-of-front-page treatment on Pravda^H^H^H^H^H^H FoxNews.com -- Islamic Terrorists Using YouTube to Spread Propaganda --

LONDON —  Anyone with an Internet connection can watch videos of bombings and sniper attacks against U.S. forces — shot and edited by Islamic militants and broadcast on YouTube, the world's largest video-sharing Web site.

With the global spread of high-speed Internet connections and the relative anonymity afforded by the world's biggest and busiest sites, extremists have found a new theater to display violence and anti-American propaganda.

On Friday, prosecutors in Britain charged six suspects in an alleged plot to kidnap and kill a British soldier — an act that police allege was intended to be recorded and posted on the Internet.

Parviz Khan, 36, is accused of plotting to carry out the alleged abduction while four other men are accused of acting as his accomplices, prosecutor Patrick Stevens told the court hearing. A sixth man is set to appear in court on Saturday.

Until recently, videos shot by terrorist groups were posted predominantly on specialist Internet forums, which often only those knowing what to look for could find. But more are turning to mainstream sites like YouTube, which draw millions of visitors around the world each day.

"They can always bring down a video, but it's very easy to create a new one. It's like an uphill treadmill for YouTube," said Sajjan Gohel, director of international security at the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, a counterterrorism think tank.

Jeremy Curtin, a U.S. State Department official responsible for monitoring Internet propaganda, said authorities were aware of the footage on sites like YouTube but had not made any real headway in tackling the problem.

"It's new to everybody, we are trying to find out how best to engage with Internet companies," he said.

European intelligence agencies, while acknowledging existence of the videos, also say there is little they can do to stop them from popping up.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, Thomas de Maiziere, who oversees intelligence agencies, said authorities are struggling to glean information from cyberspace.

"Trying to uncover Internet meetings of terrorists is like searching for a needle in a haystack," he told the online magazine Netzeitung. "The security agencies have their hands full trying to keep pace and get into these chat rooms."

That poses problems for companies like YouTube, which features a range of weird and wonderful videos directly uploaded onto the Web site by users around the world. The most popular videos now include a panda sneezing, a song by an "American Idol" entrant and a music video by hip hop star Naz.

Although scores of Web sites let anyone post and share video clips for free, YouTube is the most popular, receiving some 65,000 new clips a day. Users collectively watch more than 100 million videos on YouTube daily.

YouTube — owned by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Inc. — says it reserves the right to remove videos that users flag as unsuitable.

"YouTube has clear terms and conditions which prohibit, amongst other things, hateful content," the company said in a statement. "Our community has been highly effective in policing the site, and YouTube removes videos if our community flags them as inappropriate."

But like other video-sharing sites, YouTube generally takes down video only after receiving a complaint. Someone else can easily repost the video under a different account, and it would remain available until YouTube receives a complaint on that as well.

It's similar to the challenges YouTube and other sites face trying to keep copyrighted clips from appearing as technology makes sharing video among everyday users increasingly easy.

A recent search brings YouTube users to a video carrying the logo of the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni insurgent groups including Al Qaeda in Iraq.

In the video, a man stands in a deserted field beside a blue car. Speaking in Arabic, he gives what he describes as his final testament before a suicide car bombing that he claims will target a U.S. convoy in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

"I ask God this day to enable us to kill the infidels and to grant us the highest martyrdom," he says. "I dedicate a special greeting to sheik Abu Abdulla (Osama bin Laden), Sheik Ayman (al-Zawahri) and our Sheik Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."

Moments later, the footage shows what appears to be a checkpoint, followed by an explosion. The man shooting the film screams, "Allahu akbar. (God is great.)"

In another video entitled "Qanaas Baghdad Episode II," a man purporting to be an Iraqi sniper offers tips on attacking U.S. soldiers. As music plays, a group of soldiers stand at the side of a bustling, dusty street. The sniper locks on to one of them. A second later, the soldier falls to the ground.

The site had recorded 30,000 hits for the video since it was posted in November, according to YouTube's view counter on the site. The video was removed from the site Thursday, but other videos showing sniper shootings of American troops were still available.

Such videos often touch off heated exchanges by viewers, such as one between users Sameerah and Helmycito.

"I follow Islam and what the Koran (sic) says. I dont (sic) follow these stupid idiots who think they are Muslim and kill innocent people which is against Islam," user Sameerah wrote.

"Do u call US soldires (sic) innocent people? why r they there? Kill them as they kill our bros and sisters out there," Helmycito replied.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the United States accused the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera of giving a propaganda platform to Al Qaeda for broadcasting videos in which bin Laden justified the attacks. The failure of American counterterrorism officials to now move against U.S. companies also displaying martyrdom videos shows a lack of fairness, said Ahmed Sheikh, Al-Jazeera's editor in chief.

"It's really hypocritical and unbelievable," Sheikh said.

Experts believe advances in Internet technology will lead to a surge in well produced, homemade extremist videos.

"It's practically impossible to stop these videos," said the State Department's Curtin. "You can close one channel and another one will open up."

Mark Rasch, a former Justice Department computer crimes prosecutor, said the videos at YouTube and other sites are evidence of "a new front in the propaganda battle."

"It's here to stay," Rasch said. "It's going to get worse — we are going to see real-time executions with higher production values."

(Also on on MSNBC.com)

[Caveman]

Yeah i have a lot of problems with the way Youtube does things but i can't completely hate them because I was only able to Find " The God Who Wasn't There" on youtube and no torrent site.

[Johnny_]

Youtube is just a service like any other.  If you don't like it, use their competitor or host your video yourself.  I myself have no particular problem with YouTube.  If their censorship policy is alarming to you, go elsewhere and spread the word.

[Alex Libman]

Fuck YouTube!

They deleted all full-length instances of the Third Party Debates!

Google is a government conspiracy to control the Internet!!!

Attica!  Attica!  Attica!  Attica!

[Russell Griswold]

YouTube sucks now.

[hellbilly]

What's all the hubub? Are they still removing material that's critical of islam?

What's a better alternative?

[Alex Libman]

If YouTube didn't exist, more people would use P2P.