You-Tube, Free Speech or Hypocrisy?

Another type of free-speech media that is circulating the internet now, are videos, that are highly accessible. In particular, the popular site YouTube. This concern of free speech is considerably interesting, when examining the groups terms of service. While they do have standards of service, and will remove videos that violate them, it is called to attention as to what constitutes indecent behavior in their eyes, as well as the government. Certain videos that are censored and removed are often times in opposing views of Google-YouTube's sponsors, which highly threaten net neutrality ((Straubhaar, LaRose and Davenport (2010 p292).

First we examine a couple of the website's guidelines, and how they are not exactly followed. One of the guidelines is that “We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view (youtube.com).” But recently there was outrage about the websites removal of pro-life advertisement, stating it was too graphic, but there was a pro-choice argument that was left up which had very similar content(precursorblog.com). The point was also brought up was that the reason for this was because many of Google's Youtube shares are owned by Verizon, who has been rallying to control ISP searches for their sponsored products. Verizon was against this video, from American Pro-life, and so it amazingly was taken off. This threatens net neutrality and is a visible hypocrisy of free speech that they themselves display (precursorblog.com).

Besides the technical aspects of this, there are plenty of videos on Youtube that are to say the least disturbing, such as a video of an eight year old girl that still breast feeds (youtube.com). Where is the line of indecency? They remain on the site until they are “flagged” or reported by viewers. That means the damage is done and plenty of people view harmful and indecent material. This is material that, according to (Straubhaar, LaRose and Davenport (2010 p448), must be sexually explicit by community standards before it is removed.

Here is the Video, I find it disturbing, although not "flagged" by Google. Watch at your own risk!

 They also must review the material and if they approve it, then it is left on, such as the young girl breastfeeding. Of course by then the buzz surrounding the video is enough to get tons of traffic onto the website and it's sponsors. This is protected by free speech within reason, but it is the websites “terms of service” that allow them to operate in any manner that they see fit. Yet again this is an optional website, and the videos are clearly titled and described, so consenting adults have the choice to view them. Does that make them ethical? Do you think that Youtube hides behind a veil of written terms of service that really allows the viewers to describe what is ethical? After all, they have to view the content before they can flag it. Or is it the user's choice to abstain from title's and descriptions that are harmful as well as be responsible for what they view online?

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