Today Joseph posted a little missive he sent to TPTB at YouTube.
"There is a clip posted of the characters of Luke and Noah from As the World Turns kissing ... and for some unfathomable reason it has been "flagged" as inappropriate for individuals under the age of 18.
This is deeply and unsettlingly offensive to me. For comparison, this compilation of kisses between ATWT's heterosexual couple, Carly and Jack ... is not flagged, and yet it is even more passionate."
....
It seems that while the YouTube community is self-policing, nobody at YouTube is checking those self appointed policemen and bigotry is rampant on the site.
How would it be for a group of people to do what the bigots do. Go through YouTube and massively click the 'report abuse option' on any vid that shows a straight couple kissing, to be tagged as inappropriate for children. Any vid that uses the word "fag" should be tagged as other > "other Dangerous Acts" for promoting violence through bigotry. I can think of quite a few other topics I wouldn't want my kids viewing. Many vids on youtube show mock violence against gay people or promote hatred.
If enough people did this, YouTube might take a different look at their complacency in abetting bigotry. Many children do watch and post on YouTube and they consider bigotry pointed at GLBT people as their right. YouTube seems to be supporting that attatude.
I wonder if a petition would do any good. The only thing that might bring attention is if folks started to massively report abuse that is similar, perhaps YouTube would see the duplicity in their system.
But there are some questions I'd like to see answered first.
1) Why does YouTube support bigotry?
2) What does YouTube find inappropriate about two men kissing and not a man and a woman?
3) What are the criteria for flagging a video?
4) Can a flagged video be unflagged?
5) Is it possible to file suit against YouTube for discrimination or defamation?.
Submitted by
Nukely (
1459 points) (
334 posts)
on Fri, 2008-04-25 12:46.
The inane response I received from YouTube.
Thanks for starting this thread, Nukely; like many others, it's been bothering me for a long time--that any randomly innocent video of two men kissing gets flagged as inappropriate, but far more offensive material gets a free pass. And the response I received from YouTube is hardly reassuring (is this person moonlighting from Proctor & Gamble?):
"Thanks for voicing your concerns to us. Thousands of videos are flagged each day, and though we don't break down specific metrics regarding what content is flagged, the assumption that "LGBT content is routinely subject to flagging by users, while similar content depicting 'straight' characters/individuals does not get flagged," seems anecdotal and is not supported by what we observe on the site. YouTube is, and always has been, a forum for free expression.
To be clear, our community is made up of millions of people across the world and is diverse racially, ethnically, politically, religiously as well as in terms of sexual orientation."
So, in other words, we have to respect the mythological beliefs of ignorant oafs who are merely following the word of some pink unicorn in the sky over and above our right to allow unfettered access to two men merely showing physical affection with each other.
I'm pretty angry right now....
Check out my blog: http://radicalsexy.blogspot.com/
YouTube is oblivious!
I felt the same way when I saw the flag. It's pretty ridiculous. There is so much stuff on the site that is really objectionable the flagging is really becoming a joke. YouTube's response is really not a response at all. They apparently have their flags on autopilot. I wonder how many objections are needed before they actually flag something. They never really explain it.
Nobody flagged this one!
afhickman
"It takes a village (to make Village People)"
Here's an add for jeans that was added to youtube a couple of months ago. Was this actually aired in the States? I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWMsuycuPhk&feature=related