Youtube Censorship and The Blackout

I recently heard that youtube has made a decision to change a policy to no longer feature videos with vulgar language, and violence. Well I did more research on this and I found out that it was worse than I originally thought when I first heard about it. Apparently the new policy moves these videos out of areas of most viewed categories, and areas like that. This tells me one of two things. Either youtube has gone completely mainstream because of google taking over, or youtube has given in, to complaints of people who don’t understand things like artistic integrity. Either way this is a loss for all of us as filmmakers/ v-blogers/ ECT, professional, and amateur alike.

If it is because youtube has gone mainstream, that tells me that basically speaking, big business Hollywood has spread to the Internet. The Internet! The place where we are supposed to have our complete freedom of speech. The place where we all can express our selves in whatever way we want to. I’m not saying that it is Hollywood, at least directly, but it could be indirectly. What this does is contain us as small time filmmakers, and would help keep us from prospering, or at least slow us down. This can and will hurt many of us as filmmakers and fans of filmmakers creating videos that may have this content.

Now if it ended up being because of unintelligent people complaining about language, and violence. Someone is going to have to slap youtube for being stupid. These people who complain about this content forget about their most basic of rights. They forget that they don’t have to watch any of that content at all. All they have to do is close the window and ta-da! The video is gone! Anyone with an education to at least high school, probably junior high understands that when it comes to entertainment, the people who are NOT complaining, are most like the majority, and are enjoying the content. I’m not saying there aren’t people who over do things, but it’s their right to over do it. I know youtube has numbers that would be able to prove me right, if they looked at them. All it is, is just comparing the number of complainer with the number of non-complainers. I’m positive that I don’t need to say more on that.

This whole thing youtube has decided to do is not good for all of us as filmmakers. It’s pretty much a form of censorship. I believe that most people out there would agree, to at least some point.

I would like to also add that I’m not the type to use vulgar language all the time. In fact I rarely use it in any of my films. Also with violence, I guess it would depend of the project I’m working on. I’m only stating this just to add to my point.

Now that my point has been made, I would like to talk about the YOUTUBE BLACKOUT everybody has been talking about. This is a response to youtube’s new policy on language and violence. It takes place between December 19, 2008 and goes to December 20, 2008. That is the time to whom ever is participating will NOT be going to youtube at all to post and view videos. They will also NOT be using google, the youtube parent company. Why is this? Well since google is the parent company they control the policies youtube has. The point of this blackout is to hurt revenue for them. And in turn this will hopefully cause google and youtube to change the policies. Will it work? I don’t know, but I do support the cause.

Please understand that this is just my personal opinion and may not reflect the opinions of Round Table Reels.