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YouTube UK Bans Videos With Weapons
Posted: 2008-09-24 03:39pm
by Big Orange
YouTube bans knife and gun videos
Thursday, September 18, 2008
YouTube has moved to stem growing concern that its website glamourises violence by banning videos featuring weapons.
The Google-owned video-sharing site has decided to introduce the ban for the UK only amid widespread unease about the increase in knife crime in the country.
It says that any video which is clearly "showing weapons with the aim of intimidation" will be taken down from the site.
Not all such videos will be removed immediately, however, as the ban will not be retrospective and any offending footage already on the site will need to be reported again.
"We recognise that there has been particular concern over videos in the UK that involve showing weapons with the aim of intimidation, and this is one of the areas we are addressing," a YouTube spokesperson said.
The move has been welcomed by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith as a "real step forward" and she encouraged other sites to take similar action.
"I would like to see other internet service providers follow suit to reinforce our message that violence will not be tolerated either on the internet or in the real world," she said.
Today's announcement follows a cross-party report by MPs this summer which warned that the internet had a "dark side" from which users need to be protected against.
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Way da' go
FailTube, trying to ruin our fun because of a minority of violent scumbags and sanctimonious twits.
Posted: 2008-09-24 03:45pm
by Akumz Razor
YouTube US took down my target shooting video because it had fast-paced editing and Van Halen playing in the background. My attempts at making a somewhat professional quality video also made it more threatening than all those videos of redneck teens trying to chop down trees with AR-15s which remain online
Posted: 2008-09-24 04:30pm
by Admiral Valdemar
I hope they ban action and horror movie clips too. Y'know, because of the glamorising of violence for entertainment purposes.
It's the lolita hentai banning bullshit all over again.
Posted: 2008-09-24 04:33pm
by Panzer Grenadier
So who decides what constitutes "intimidation." Im sure there are people who would find a M-16 itself intimidating
Posted: 2008-09-24 04:41pm
by Tanasinn
This isn't youtube's fault so much as some British whining's fault. Youtube, being owned by Google, is one big lawsuit magnet, and they'll pretty much start deleting shit if you so much as say "boo." Just re-upload the videos, call your politicians and the mods morons, and move on.
Posted: 2008-09-24 04:51pm
by Edi
Tanasinn wrote:This isn't youtube's fault so much as some British whining's fault. Youtube, being owned by Google, is one big lawsuit magnet, and they'll pretty much start deleting shit if you so much as say "boo." Just re-upload the videos, call your politicians and the mods morons, and move on.
I thin this might have some correlation with the school shooting in Finland two days ago. The 2007 one had a big YouTube component and so did this second one and it's been plastered on the news pretty widely all over the world. So if there have been noises made in the UK about censoring this kind of thing, it might very well have given them the catalyst to go ahead with it.
Posted: 2008-09-24 05:01pm
by Losonti Tokash
Seeing how this article is dated almost a week ago, I doubt the Finland school shooting had that big of an impact on a prior event.
Posted: 2008-09-24 05:36pm
by Edi
Losonti Tokash wrote:Seeing how this article is dated almost a week ago, I doubt the Finland school shooting had that big of an impact on a prior event.
Whoops, my bad, that. I've got to stop posting at half past midnight...
Posted: 2008-09-24 05:57pm
by Kar Kar
Youtube is well known for deleting videos and accounts pretty much as soon as a user hits that report button, be it copyright, sexual activity, or even to much violence. This just seems to be a natural step for them.
Posted: 2008-09-24 06:09pm
by Ghost Rider
Off to OT, because this is about much an article as claiming a study of animals and rocks mate.
Posted: 2008-09-24 07:50pm
by Davey
I'm going to take a video of me throwing stones at a silhouette target, call the result the "M2-1987 Compact Assault Rock Firepower Demonstration" post the result to Youtube and see what happens.
Posted: 2008-09-25 07:00pm
by Big Orange
I can understand banning homemade videos sent by murderous pikeys terrorising other people, but this is easily another pretext for companies to remove clips from action movies.