YouTube Censored?

By Ryan Murphy

The most cherished freedom American citizens take for granted is freedom of speech, and there is no media innovation that utilizes freedom of speech like YouTube. From video blogs, to “how to” videos, to campaigning, to documentaries, YouTube has given the world a new, uncensored medium to express unlimited imagination. YouTube was created in 2005 byChad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim to give the world a new way to communicate. With a staggering 2 billion videos viewed a day in 2010, YouTube is changing the way the individual can communicate their thoughts all over the world.

On November 13, 2006 Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion, and as of 2010 annual advertising revenues are about $200 million. According to the study by comScore Google sites accounted for 44.1 percent of all videos viewed in the U.S. market in July, and Google's nearest competitor, Fox Interactive Media, accounted for 3.9 percent, followed by Microsoft properties at 2.5 percent and Yahoo sites at 2.4 percent. The report also found that three-quarters of U.S. Internet users watched online videos, with the average viewer watching 235 minutes. Google had 54.7 average videos per viewer compared to 8.1 for Fox, 7.2 for Yahoo and 8.7 for Microsoft (Quality of service, 2008).

As YouTube puts the power of freedom of speech in the hands of every human being in the planet, censorship by governments all over the world is becoming a major concern for consumers. In March of 2010, Google was banned in China particularly because of the social networking sites that include YouTube, Face book, and Twitter. Government’s everywhere are cracking down on dissidents against government policy that voice their opinions on these social networking sites, because of the social unrest it is causing in primarily socialist communist countries (Failed Search, 2010). The popularity of YouTube is mainly due to the freedom of expression it gives to its consumer, and its survival explicitly depends on government keeping their sticky fingers off censorship regulations for these sites.

The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), was introduced on September 21, 2010, and If people don't speak out against this unconstitutional bill US citizens could soon find themselves joining Iranians and Chinese in being blocked from accessing broad chunks of the public Internet. Attorney General Eric Holder would have unlimited power over the internet in the US, which is very dangerous for the first amendment and dissenters of government during political uprisings and economic downturns (Ahmed, 2009).

Viacom has been suing YouTube for years for copyright infringement, but YouTube is perfectly legally as long as they take down the copyrighted material as soon as they are informed about it, this is why Viacom lost to YouTube in court. But if COICA passes, Viacom wouldn’t need to prove YouTube is doing anything illegal, as long as they can persuade the courts that enough people are using YouTube for copyright infringement, the entire site and all videos that do not pertain to the Governments agenda could be censored (Soraker, 2008). This would ultimately lead to DOJ ordering ISP’s to sensor whatever they want without a court order.

Since I have had a YouTube account I have noticed that all of YouTube’s ratings and number of views per video have been intentionally censored by YouTube to keep consumers from gravitating to viral videos that speak out against government or the economy. YouTube has also taken away their top ten and top 100 most viewed lists because all of the top twenty videos were documentaries on the coercion within government and Wall Street, shedding light on corporations involved in illegal activities and their involvement with government officials. YouTube claims that this is not true, but the account members between 2005 and 2008 remember how the old format used to file its most popular videos. The one thing I am very upset with YouTube about is the videos that have been deliberately taken off my web site, and many other website’s for speaking out about the truth pertaining to Government and the current state of the economy. YouTube censorship is already starting without the passage of a bill, imagine what the censorship will be once these bills are passed.

YouTube may be the most important innovation since the television and telephone, because it has become the checks and balances between citizens and Big Government in the past five years. If US citizens do not pay attention to the sneaky bills finding their way into congress, then the popular YouTube and social networking sites could be living out the last years of operation. I love that opinions can be heard from all over the world so I can maintain a worldly view on politics, economics, and philosophies held by citizens of the US as well as other nations. It is only a matter of time until YouTube is censored and the most famous networking site in the world will fade away, just as it has in 20 plus countries around the world. If America does not start paying attention to what congress is doing to the first amendment, I’m afraid unpopular laws for social networks are right around the corner.

I hope America will be able to enjoy their social networking sites for a long time to come, but movements towards censorship bills are diminishing my hopes, as US citizens apathetically turn their cheek to an incredibly important issue. Cass Sunstein and Eric Holder are at the forefront of destroying intranet neutrality and Americans should be watching these men like a hawk if they want to see YouTube survive for another decade. Cass Sunstein said, “"Our main policy claim here is that the government should engage" — should engage — "in cognitive infiltration of the groups dissenting against government." What scares me more than this quote is, what John F. Kennedy warned us about pertaining to media censorship, “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

“Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed – and no republic can survive. And so it is to the printing press – to the recorder of man’s deeds, the keeper of his conscience, the courier of his news — that we look for strength and assistance, confident that with your help man will be what he was born to be: free and independent.”
-John F. Kennedy, 1961

Until Obama speaks these words of freedom of the press, I will continue to believe he is a socialist through his actions and his advisors actions, Cass Sunstein. Our favorite social networking sites like YouTube and Face book will become a thing of the past, just as it has in China if Americans do not start paying attention to our leaders agendas.