White House's YouTube

Just livestreamed the 100 day press conference.

Do Re Mi

A video of almost 200 people taking over Antwerpen's Centraal Station in Belgium and doing a carefully choreographed dance to the Do Re Mi song (aka Maria's Dance aka Maria's Song) from "Sound of Music" has garnered almost a million views on YouTube, and continues to grow, sprouting a new round of google trends today.

Free speech means even the people you hate get to talk

You don't have to listen.

Senator Lieberman's staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube's Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, we examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech. Most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines.

Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a letter sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube -- even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos. While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds. Of course, users are always free to express their disagreement with a particular video on the site, by leaving comments or their own response video. That debate is healthy

We might even find out that Iran is filled with innocent Iranians and that most of them have no desire to attack Israel or the United States...

I'm going to predict the future....

We will be doing splendidly in Iraq in just a few .... (/yanks out a few more Cat5 cables) .... more minutes....



Jeraylyn Merritt of Firedoglake:

Iraq’s interior ministry has decided to bar news photographers and camera operators from the scenes of bomb attacks, operations director Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said on Sunday (local time).

His announcement was the latest in a series of attempts to curtail press coverage of the ongoing conflict, which has already attracted criticism from international human rights bodies.

That got me thinking, how real is the War in Iraq to Americans who don’t have a loved one fighting in the conflict? Where has the news coverage been of the gory daily details?

For those of you old enough to remember the media coverage of the Vietnam War, you’ll remember how vividly it was brought to us every evening on our television screens by the nightly news programs.

Without the internet or e-mail, a massive anti-war movement grew. I don’t think anyone doubts that it contributed to the war’s end.

By contrast, we hardly ever see the damage inflicted in Iraq up close and personal on television news. The war has become something we hear about in headlines, like “5 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq” and “37 Civilians Killed by Roadside Bomb,” but we don’t actually see it.

Maybe we should. Maybe the visceral effect of watching people die and be maimed, which is a daily occurrence in Iraq, would spark greater outrage here at home and force Congress to act to end this war once and for all.

So, what do you think? Is the media doing its part to expose the atrocities in Iraq? Has self-restraint dictated media coverage to date or is the Administration controlling what the media shows?

This new embargo on showing bombings in Iraq is very troubling. I think Americans need to see the blood and gore to absorb the reality of war and the lives lost.

And Bryan of Why Now?:

[05/11/07] Laura Smith-Spark, BBC News, Washington: US military takes Iraq war to YouTube

The US military has taken the war in Iraq into cyberspace, with the launch of its own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube.

[05/14/07] Rob Watson, BBC defence and security correspondent: US blocks soldiers from websites

The US military is to block troops from using YouTube and MySpace and 11 other popular websites for sharing photos, video clips and messages.

[05/02/07] Army Regulation 530–1: Operations Security (OPSEC) - commanders must approve blog posts and e-mails.

So, who wants to bet that Commander Guy, the Big Manly Surge, and his Plan to Win will suddenly be doing super-de-duper well?

Update 5/15: Think Progress:

As of yesterday, U.S. soldiers are blocked from accessing YouTube, MySpace, and 11 other websites on official Defense Department computers nationwide, “severing some of the most popular ties linking U.S. troops in combat areas to their far-flung relatives and friends, and depriving soldiers of a favorite diversion from the boredom of overseas duty.”

The military has justified the new policy by stating it will “increase network security and protect the use of the bandwidth.” But soldiers are already barred from posting classified material and scholars point out that “the Pentagon could have rationed Web access rather than cut it off entirely.” While troops will still be allowed to visit the sites from non-military computers, “few soldiers in combat areas carry private computers.”

This should bring gravitas and intelligence

Back to the internetal trucking tubes. Josh Marshall:

This should provide no end of entertainment. Some right-wingers apparently think Youtube is biased against them. So a crew of them have created Qubetv, a right-wing only Youtube, basically like a digital innertube for folks who can't hack it out on the actual internet.

Veoh

The next YouTube but better....

Viacom shakes down YouTube

Promptly killing the golden goose. The world shrugs and goes elsewhere.

Tengrain over at Mock, Paper, Scissors:

Viacom continues its ritualistic suicide amongst the young and mobile by continuing to attack what is perhaps the greatest, free advertising it has ever had, and generate disdain and distrust from potential viewers and customers. If you ever tried to upload something to YouTube, you already know that these folks spent hours, and hours of their time and labor to do it, and now all that work is wiped out. Viacom antagonized their viewers with that request, and treated them like criminals.

This is so silly. Viacom is scared of losing money and market share to the internet, but they are not considering that these little, fuzzy 3-minute clips might be inducing viewers to go look at their product. Because, you know, I want to watch two minutes “The Daily Show” on a tiny 2-inch fuzzy WMV file rather than watch the entire show on a gigantic entertainment center with a plasma screen. It just doesn’t make sense.

So my guess is that Viacom is trying to shake down Google; they don’t just want free advertising, they want someone to pay them for it. This will end with a settlement.

Did you have to take down a YouTube video

Because Viacom said so?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation would like to hear from you.