YouTube was created in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed
Karim. By September of 2005 YouTube had its first 1 million hit video. That
just shows how fast YouTube blew up, and became the number 1 video website.
This was a great thing for people who quickly needed to look up educational
videos, “how to” videos, and even funny videos for entertainment. Personally I love
YouTube and I use it all the time, mostly for entertainment and music, but also
for school. YouTube quickly exploded and people started uploading videos like
crazy. In 2010, more video
were uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 US television networks had
created in 60 years. This was an incredible thing, but giving the users the
ability to upload whatever they wanted also led to a lot of material that were
deemed offensive by viewers, which was a very dangerous thing. YouTube was
forced to remove many videos that were offensive to many viewers. YouTube made
something that allowed users to flag any videos as containing porn, mature
content or graphic violence, depicting illegal acts or being racially or
ethnically offensive, and then a video may be removed. I do not agree with this
method YouTube uses. I don’t think YouTube should be deleting videos that are
put up by users. For example the Dave Foley beheading video that was removed. I
don’t think that it should have been removed because yes even though it is horrifying
to see, it shows the reality that is going on. Honestly before I read this article
in class I had no idea who James Foley was and what was going on about it. If
the video was still up I’m sure I would have known more about it. YouTube taking videos down like that one is trying to shield society
from the bad stuff that is going on outside of the US, but when in reality
those videos should be informing us. I do think that yes some of these videos
are too harsh or are offensive to some people. What I think YouTube should do
about it is have a disclaimer before the video starts so people are warned and don’t
have to watch it if they don’t want to. Another example of censorship on YouTube
I found was how YouTube is removing protesting videos. “You
Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and
remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply
asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.”
(Watson, Paul “Government Orders YouTube to Censor Protest Videos”, Infowars,
May 20, 2011) This is basically taking away people’s rights. I think that
YouTube should be a place for people to share what they want to share, and when
it does come down to things that may be inappropriate or offensive then there
should be a disclaimer.
Works Cited
"Government Orders You Tube To Censor Protest
Videos." Infowars. N.p., n.d.
Web. 07 Oct. 2014.
