YouTube’s new sex rules
The real reason for cracking down on raunchy Internet videos
YouTube: More self-scrutiny?
(Imaginechina via AP Images)
YouTube is taking a step down a slippery slope, said David Sarno in the Los Angeles Times. The video-sharing site announced on its blog that it was imposing new rules to crack down on “sexually suggestive” clips and profanity. But “in all my years of YouTubing” I’ve never encountered a user offended by four-letter words or sexy dancing, so the company is probably just alienating users in this attempt to clean up its act.
Actually, YouTube is just one of many sites built on user-shared content that have decided it’s “good business to limit sexually explicit material,” said Jenna Wortham in The New York Times online. Ning, a platform that allows people to create their own social networks, is shutting down its “aptly named Red Light District” because adult fare doesn’t generate enough revenue to cover its costs.
YouTube’s newfound prudishness is a “wee bit” hypocritical, said Dan Tynan in Computerworld. For one thing, demanding that users claim to be 18 before they see the clips with “hot booties and thong bikinis” doesn’t protect young people, it just forces them to lie about their age. “YouTube reached critical mass” by reeling in users with “quasi-smutty videos”—it can hide its shady past, but it can’t escape it.
YouTube’s attempt to “class itself up” might not be about the money at all, said Erick Schonfeld in TechCrunch. It might be true, as Ning executives said, that many top advertisers don’t want to be associated with racy content. But YouTube could be betting that “the more it polices itself, the less likely that Congress or the FCC will try to police it in the future.”
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6 Comments
Posted by dan tynan, Friday, December 5, 2008, 1:44 pm hey, thanks for the shout out. dt
Posted by Michael J. Gorman, Friday, December 5, 2008, 3:49 pm Censorship always stinks. However, YouTube would do better to screen out videos that lack apparent value, quality, interest (to the majority). For instance, a five minute video of a dog defecating would be screened out and not shown because it's boring and visually repulsive to most people. For those of us who resent and object to any form of censorship, judgments on "taste" are fine (even if we can't all agree); censorship is not fine.
Posted by Rob, Sunday, December 7, 2008, 6:48 am Weird. Only this week I tried to flag a jihadi video - in fact a channel full of jihadi songs and content - and it's still there, luring in young muslim kids in Europe with it's glorification of death and destruction. But hey, a boob is so much more damaging...
Posted by Lisa, Sunday, December 7, 2008, 7:47 pm Let's move the smut to the back room where it used to be.
Posted by hussain, Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 9:08 am can you sind to my new video for sex.
Posted by venr, Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 10:09 pm jember
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