November 9, 2007 4:00 AM PST
Should YouTube play the censor and sentinel?
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YouTube moved swiftly to remove Auvinen's videos and profile page from the site within hours of the murders. While many believe that's a proper and respectful response to the violence, some observers wish YouTube had allowed the videos to stay on the site so users could gain a better understanding of what happened.
"Yes, many people would find those videos disturbing," said Sonja Baumer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Berkeley. But, she cautions, "how is the public going to learn what led him to do this? The public is curious and it should have the right to respond. What are we supposed to do, just forget about it until the next time it happens?"
Baumer's point is that the videos posted to YouTube by Auvinen, who went by the username Sturmgeist89, may offer clues as to why he allegedly gunned down six of his classmates, the school nurse, and its headmistress.
Baumer was studying political participation by young people on YouTube prior to the shootings. While studying groups that were proponents of anti-immigration, she stumbled upon on some radical right-wing YouTube users with loose connections to Auvinen.
Hours before the shooting, authorities say Auvinen posted a video to YouTube that revealed his plans. Some of the other 88 clips he uploaded shed light on what Finnish police called Auvinen's "radical beliefs." A YouTube spokeswoman declined to comment.
In fairness, YouTube is in a no-win situation. Leave the videos up, and the company is accused of insensitivity. Take them down, and it's accused of censorship, regardless of the unpleasant nature of the material.
The world's most popular video-sharing site now finds itself in the middle of a very heated debate over issues of free speech, censorship, and whether the site is responsible for spotting criminals. Noel McNamara, president of the Crime Victims Support Association, was quoted Thursday in The Age, an Australian publication, saying he believes YouTube should filter for criminal or potentially criminal material.
This, according to John Palfrey, executive director of Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, is too much to ask for any community site.
"The squeeze is definitely on YouTube," Palfrey said. "But it's nearly impossible to filter information as it goes online--whether you're filtering for copyright violations or hate speech. The only hope (YouTube) has, once they are notified by technology or human beings, is to take a look at something and then to take it down. I think you can require them to act responsibly after they know something is on the site."
Internet video allows anyone to broadcast to millions, but there isn't any regulatory body to supervise. According to Palfrey, YouTube must judge what is acceptable content, and is therefore thrust into the role of being the site's Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
"TV is now on the Web, and it conveys the same sort of power and impact," Palfrey said. "Yet there is no FCC or someone saying you can't show that. YouTube finds itself in the same position as a government regulator. It must make judgment calls in the same way the FCC draws the line for broadcast media."
According to reports, some of Auvinen's videos espoused violent, white supremacist, and neo-Nazi ideas. Many people are asking why this material was allowed on YouTube. Auvinen owned a previous YouTube account under the username NaturalSelector89, but was booted from the site for violating its user agreement, according to reports. He simply created a new account under the name Sturmgeist89, which means "storm spirit" in German.
See more CNET content tagged:
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We took the bull by the horns from the begining and we pay attention to what is going up on our site. To begin reviewing content at this point in time, You Tube would have to employ a mimimun of 100 workers, and having them working all shifts to get the situation in hand.
Society is in a sad state, focused solely on profit without responsibility and rather than our lives being an apology, we have opted to make them a statement.
It is time that we realize that while actions like this are the responsibility of those who commit them, corporations that provide forums for this type of communication must take some responsibility.
Are we learning nothing this year?
If you don't like what someone says, stop listening to them.
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it."
someone they disagree with politically such as conservatives like
Michelle Malkin who has had political videos removed from
Youtube as "hate speech." You see conservatives = hate speech
in the mind of Google bots, but to these same people, some
lunatic with a gun explaining how he is going to kill everyone he
knows is someone expressing free speech and is someone we
need to listen to in order to gain better understanding of him.
The problem with sites such as this is not their inability to police
the site, it is their lack of ability to employ common sense
policing policies.
As with immigration, government officials incapable of enforcing their own laws would place their burden on private people, encouraging us all to turn in our neighbors.
At the same time, Congress is considering giving the Department of Justice the authority to pursue civil cases.
YouTube has the right to do whatever they decide with the content posted by users. Ultimately, economic factors will decide this question--which path will result in the least attrition of their user base?
Its when people begin saying that YouTube must do this, or can not do that, or worse when people say there should be laws to tell them what to do or not to do about this type of thing. Hello, its their site, and your not paying for use of it are you? They are under no obligation whatsoever in my eyes to do, or not do anything. If you don't like YouTube content then make your own damn site, and then you can be the censor of what is offensive or not.
Personally if I were a major user of video sharing sites I would want the one who censors the least, but informs the most. Tag content as violent, or sexual, or whatever, but let me decide whether to view it or not, let me be my own personal censor, not someone else. By informing the user of the nature of the content, before they actually view it, can help avoid these huge issues, because I suspect a lot of peoples complaints are related to times when they accidentally saw something they really did not want to see, and had no warning vs. something they think no one should be allowed to see (which no one should have the right to actually do).
Freedom of Expression is the treatment.
Knowledge is the cure.
Although part of this companies objective is to access the commons for as many content producers as it can it is still a company.
Being a company makes Youtube sensitive.
Mind you if youtube was a commons system then it too would have sensitivity issues.
So anyway if youtube for reasons of legal sensitivity want to remove content then you are dealing with a legal issue.
So what law is there that catagorically states people accessing data on a public medium can't see videos made by a mass murderer that are not actually snuff.If you do go down this road without bashing heads as to what is acceptable you could end up with more unacceptable things happening.
So the answer to whether youtube should play the parent the answer is not really unless the legal framework for doing so has been decided by all interested groups.
Personally though yes i would have liked to ponder what was triggering such uncontrollable desires.
Perhaps the real question is are some people on earth ending up with serious psychological problems and what are all the abuses that can produce this psychological problem in people.
I think it's good to remember that many mind issues do relate to nurture issues and nature issues are more subtle and not of direct influence but instead factors(people making money from chemical solutions think the exact oppsite yet the evidence point this way and not theirs especially as the real data is comming of age) and thus is why you may see the same looking person in prison as might be your helpful neighbour.
If you are a geneticist and think you can prove me wrong on that point i would love to see how think you can do it with real evidence.
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by HABAKKUK =
July 28, 2008 1:15 PM PDT
- VISIT MY SITE,www.youtube.com/HABAKKUP.Im going to command the armies of the planet to the real FREEDOM.The armies of Babylon,this is the way!!!GO YOU TUBE!!!!!
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