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YouTube Accused Of Censorship

writes "According to WorldNetDaily, Youtube is engaging in censorship. A quote from the article summarizes well: The popular video-sharing YouTube site, which is being purchased by Google for $1.65 billion, limited access to a political ad that mocks the Clinton administration's policy on North Korea, but contains no profanity, nudity or other factors generally thought objectionable." It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

522 comments

  1. censoring by geoffspear · · Score: 1, Funny

    Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.

    YouTube is censoring Slashdot now, too! Aieyeeee!

    --
    Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    1. Re:censoring by skrew · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Narrator: In A.D. 2006, Youtube was happening Captain: What happen ? Mechanic: Somebody set up us the google. Operator: We get signal. Captain: What ! Operator: Main video turn on. Captain: It's you !! CATS: How are you users !! CATS: All your video are belong to Sergey Brin. CATS: You are on the way to flagged down. Captain: What you say !! CATS: You have no chance to watch your video. Make your google video time. CATS: Ha Ha Ha Ha ..!..

      --
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    2. Re:censoring by enjerth · · Score: 0

      I can't believe you have to explain AYBABTU http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AYBABTU on slashdot.

    3. Re:censoring by TFGeditor · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      {sigh)

      Dear Mods:

      The parent is a parody of the opening dialog (poorly translated from Japanese into English) in a video game called "Zero Wing." Please see http://allyourbase.planettribes.gamespy.com/video1 _view.shtml before modding such posts.

      Thank you.

      --
      Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
  2. YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by gasmonso · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's not YouTube per say, it's people flagging the video as inappropriate. That causes the restriction to be put on. Once YouTube became aware of that, they immediately removed the warning. I just watched the video on YouTube.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/
    1. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by aonaran · · Score: 1, Redundant

      Mods please mark parent informative, I fear this one is going to get out of control if this comment gets buried

    2. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by geoffspear · · Score: 5, Funny

      The best part is that the article explains in detail how the flagging process and review that got it unflagged works, and then goes on to blame the liberals at Google for the users of youtube flagging content.

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    3. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by pcaylor · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Not exactly. The way the process is supposed to work is that when a user flags a video as inappropriate, it is reviewed by a YouTube employee before being permanently flagged. So someone from YouTube did flag the video as being inappropriate.

      The only possible (albeit very weak) explanation for an inappropriate tag is that there is a brief seen in the video in which the underwear of "Madeline Albright" can be seen when she splits a seam in her skirt.

      Either that, or someone just screwed up.

    4. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by IAmTheDave · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The question of "why" it gets flagged is even easier to understand, when the post itself includes commentary like

      "It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative"

      Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story? Has free speach suddenly become restricted for a person that is "just a wee bit" one way or the other? The entire point of the accusation of censorship is that any speech at any level was moderated.

      Certainly YouTube has rules - no sexually explicit content, fine. But I just read their terms of use and I don't see anything about moderation of content that may be a "wee bit conservative."

      Then again, it's like mods on Slashdot (which I believe may have been at least a part of the point of the parent post) which is that given the ability to moderate, people will always mod down speech they don't agree with, completely disregarding said person or organization's absolute right to say it.

      Disappointing indeed that the "flagged" content wasn't reviewed by YouTube and simply left be, being that it doesn't violate the terms of use of the site.

      --
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      Making The Bar Project
    5. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by qw(name) · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If it was any other year besides an election year nobody would care. But since the political karma is high this season, everyone's quick to cry "censorship".

    6. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by El+Torico · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Both P and GP posts are correct. The video is available with no restrictions or warnings, and the article has this statement,

      "Maryrose, of The YouTube Team, said if any video viewer flags a video as inappropriate, it is forwarded to a queue for the company's customer support team to review."

      Basically, the WorldNetDaily either is too stupid to understand what happened or is ignoring facts. Either way, it raises questions about their competence and/or honesty. If they are stupid or dishonest about this, then what else are they wrong about?

      --
      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
    7. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Lars+T. · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, the point was that a site who has no clue about what is actually going on (nor has the desire to check the facts) is crying "'They' are censoring conservatives". That site happens to be -surprize- conservative.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    8. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by geoffspear · · Score: 1, Informative

      No, the way the process is supposed to work and does work is that when a user flags a video as inappropriate, a warning is immediately put on it, as YouTube wants to err on the side of caution to avoid having the type of conservative groups who think seeing a flash of a nipple on TV will permanently damage any normal person viewing it complaining about how they're a porn site that must be shut down immediately.

      If they did this without having a review process that causes each flagging to be reviewed so non-objectionable content can be unflagged, this would be a problem. As it is, it's a temporary inconvenience for unpopular but not objectionable content, but hardly "censorship".

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    9. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by From+A+Far+Away+Land · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I saw the hyper-idiot Michelle Malkin whining last week that YouTube was allowing "Islamofacists" to post hate videos, but YouTube had "gone Dhimmi" [I had to look it up too] and was blocking her innocent happy bunny fun videos telling people to run for the hills and shoot first if the Muslims are coming. YouTube is quite welcome to flag her group as unsuitable for children.

    10. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by OakDragon · · Score: 1
      It's not YouTube per say, it's people flagging the video as inappropriate.

      So it's like people at digg burying a story as 'inaccurate' when the don't agree with the content of the story? Or the mods at Slashdot moderating a post as 'Troll' when they don't agree?

      And by the way, I never thought I would see a WorldNetDaily story on Slashdot's front page. I'm looking out my window for flying pigs. I can't wait to see what this thread devolves to.

    11. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Senior+Frac · · Score: 4, Informative

      Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story? Has free speach suddenly become restricted for a person that is "just a wee bit" one way or the other? The entire point of the accusation of censorship is that any speech at any level was moderated.

      It is a tenet of critical reading skills. We always teach our students to "consider the source" when reading and "consider the audience" when writing. Giving the reader a heads-up about any historical political bias is a legitimate act.

      I fail to see how free speech has been restricted as you appear to imply. They said it and anybody can read it. If any source has a history of being a wingnut, of any persuasion, policital or otherwise, then potential readers will benefit from knowing.

    12. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most likely, someone flagged it because it's essentially a political lie.

      Where? I saw it and saw satire and comedy, but nothing outright dishonest. If you disagree with it, does that make it a lie?

      There are lot of people who are more disturbed by slander than nudity.

      And these are the same people screaming for tolerence and free speech.

      --
      There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
    13. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by operagost · · Score: 1

      What is a "political lie"? Is that a truth that you find distasteful?

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    14. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by idontgno · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If any source has a history of being a wingnut, of any persuasion, policital or otherwise, then potential readers will benefit from knowing.

      Because a tenet of critical reading skills is to pigeonhole your source, so you can predict what they're going to say in advance. That saves the grubby annoying trouble of deciding for yourself the trustworthiness of the source by, say, examining multiple samples of the source's work.

      I know I'm awfully grateful when someone points out the heretics for me in advance.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    15. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by aplusjimages · · Score: 1

      I guess the writer could have said - "The Conservative WorldNetDaily" instead, but the topic shouldn't be taken serious, so the writer ended it on a non-serious note. People are too sensitive around this time of the year with their Political Menstrual Syndrome. Try not to get all bent out of shape about it.

      --
      Can I bum a sig?
    16. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by HCase · · Score: 1

      accidently got modded offtopic, posting to clear

    17. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by patrixmyth · · Score: 5, Funny

      What these people seem to forget, is that everything changed after 9-11. If we just allow anyone to go willy-nilly criticizing a President regarding his foreign policy then the terrorists have won. Plainly, you either agree with the policies of the United States, past and present 100%, or you support the godless terrorists. God bless the good people of You Tube for standing up and saying NO to constitutional rights for treasonous statements defaming the good work of the executive branch of our glorious government. We are in a WAR, and in a WAR, you just CAN'T criticize your government, because that is UNAMERICAN and hurts the feelings of our brave men and women fighting to defend our motherland. Besides, think of the children! This kind of thing is sure to confuse and corrupt them. I say, if there's any doubt, then censor first and let God sort out the details.

      --
      "Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey?"- Peter Gabriel
    18. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ackthpt · · Score: 1

      It's not YouTube per say, it's people flagging the video as inappropriate. That causes the restriction to be put on. Once YouTube became aware of that, they immediately removed the warning. I just watched the video on YouTube.

      Gasp! An informative post on /. !! Must .. mod .. down .. must .. keep .. people .. ignorant .. not .. much .. time!

      Sure is odd what passes for appropriate on youtube.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    19. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you need to practice what you preach, because the censorship wasn't the result of the political label but rather the MODERATION that followed. Critical reading skills, FTW!

    20. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by falsified · · Score: 1

      WorldNetDaily ain't CATO or the Federalist Society. They get pigeonholed because they're hacks, just like some of the more annoying lefty bloggers could be as well (like those 9/11 conspiracy wackjobs - no offense if you actually have some evidence or argument to back up your conspiracy). You work at a shit factory, and nobody's surprised at your product selection.

      --
      HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
    21. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 1

      On top of that, they are crying about something that is really not important to today's politics. Bill Clinton is sooo yesterday's news, and while I'm not in favour of censoring anti-Clinton satire, this seems not very newsworthy.

      --
      C - the footgun of programming languages
    22. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by stevew · · Score: 1

      Uhm - seems to me that YouTube has created a system that allows this to occur. So yeah - it is YouTube.

      Simple facts are that there has been a whole series of conservative posters having their content removed and or being banned from YouTube. When you look at what was banned you find out that anything containing political speech from the conservative point of view is getting nailed.

      So that is suppression of political speech which is supported by the reporting system in place at YouTube.

      They may have re-ignited this particular video, but they've also banned MANY MANY users for political speech.

      --
      Have you compiled your kernel today??
    23. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by falsified · · Score: 1

      er. not you personally. If one works at a shit factory, then others shan't be surprised at the aforementioned's product selection.

      --
      HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
    24. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by physicsphairy · · Score: 4, Insightful
      You are right, of course.

      However, it is also worth pointing out the pervasive hypocrisy. For example, during all the instantiations of Robert A Kennedy's election conspiracy theories, the +5 modded comments have taught us the error of judging the validity of content by the politics of the source. But when anybody who has committed the grievous error of being conservative has anything to say, we learn about the essentials of using knowledge of bias to sieve information.

      In short, people only care about logical fallacies when they're not amicable to their own personal cause.

    25. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by NoTheory · · Score: 1

      I'd argue that WorldNetDaily's political orientation is relevant to the story. Just the same way you complain that mods at slashdot are modding down content they don't like, and that youtube users flag content they don't like, WND is bitching and whining UNFAIRLY about something they don't like.

      Why is it unfair? Because it's not youtube or slashdot's fault, this is action taken by users. So i do think it's reasonable to qualify the rather over the top claim of censorship, by explaining that WND is biased and has a stake in the dispute they are reporting about. Thus, their political orientation is an important think to keep in mind when assessing their claim, as it is the source of their bias.

      --
      There are lives at stake here!
    26. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by EQ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, its not "soooo yesterday" if you watch the commentary.

      Its about how talking to dictators generally doesnt change them and actually allows them to flourish.

      And that specifically applies to Kim Jong Il and his nukes and missiles in North Korea, which has gotten worse under the "all carrot no stick" approach.

      Itr pretty relevant to today - and a warning to the Bush administration to not repreat the mistakes Jimmy Carter forced on Predident Clinton's administration (and that Albright pushed for as well - and so she is rightfully the butt of the jokes).

      --
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    27. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by hcob$ · · Score: 0, Troll
      On top of that, they are crying about something that is really not important to today's politics. Bill Clinton is sooo yesterday's news, and while I'm not in favour of censoring anti-Clinton satire, this seems not very newsworthy.
      Of course if it was the other way around, conservatives flagging a liberal satire of Bush, it would be in the NY Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and someone would likely get sued for it.

      However, I agree, the poster did need to point out that a conservative group was doing the pointing and talking this time.
      --
      Cliff Claven
      K.E.G. Party Chairman
      Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
    28. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      In short, people only care about logical fallacies when they're not amicable to their own personal cause.

      Some people do. Other people actually recognize that some ideologies spout more logical fallacies than others.

    29. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 1

      I agree he isn't very relevant. The issue of blaming him, however, is, since this tactic is occasionally trotted out as a last resort for Republicans grasping at straws. Just two days ago, you had Sen. John McCain quoted on the front page of the New York Time, blaming him for the current nuclear situation in North Korea.

      In general, you should look up the "Clenis" and learn about its magical powers.

      --
      Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
    30. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      oh, boo hoo, people aren't treating us conservatives fairly.

      maybe it's because you screwed up US foreign and domestic policy so much it'll take decades to fix. go ask the family of a soldier killed in iraq if screw-ups like you guys deserve fairness.

    31. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unlike you, I don't have the time to critically examine a bunch of articles from a bunch of conservative wingnut sources to decide for myself if they're biased. I appreciate the heads-up so I don't have to waste my time on crap that I don't want to read in the first place. It's the same as if you say "Salon.com is a left-wing liberal rag" or "Fox News is in the pockets of the wingnut conservatives." You're not lying, and the reader understands the bias of the source and can use that info in deciding how much weight to give to the source.

      In a perfect world we'd all read every word out there with a critical eye and decide for ourselves what we thought about that info, but this really only works for analysis and opinion: in a perfect world writers would just report facts and not spin anything in a partisan way. When dealing with facts it's nice to know up front whether you're getting the full story or just some wingnut political job.

    32. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by hamburger+lady · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      actuall, clinton's deal was a 'carrot and stick' approach. then the GOP congress took away the carrot.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    33. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by hcob$ · · Score: 1
      Basically, the WorldNetDaily either is too stupid to understand what happened or is ignoring facts. Either way, it raises questions about their competence and/or honesty. If they are stupid or dishonest about this, then what else are they wrong about?
      I think you spelled that wrong. It's spelled POLITICAL ACTIVISTS. Then you may correct the grammar for the remainder of the comment
      --
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      K.E.G. Party Chairman
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    34. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then shouldn't "a wee bit liberal" be added to anything from Reuters, the NY Times, LA Times, CNN, et al?

      After all, consider the source.

    35. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by mdarksbane · · Score: 4, Funny
      "Maryrose, of The YouTube Team, said if any video viewer flags a video as inappropriate, it is forwarded to a queue for the company's customer support team to review."

      Man, that's got to be a good job. Sitting around all day looking at movies that people have marked as porn.

    36. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by From+A+Far+Away+Land · · Score: 1, Troll

      "Of course if it was the other way around, conservatives flagging a liberal satire of Bush, it would be in the NY Times, LA Times, Boston Globe, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, and someone would likely get sued for it."

      I don't think that's true, or were you being satirical?

    37. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 1

      That's exactly what happened - it was flagged inappropriate by viewers (something that happens with any video anyone objects to in any way,) YouTube staff reviewed it and determined it was not inappropriate, and removed the flag. The system worked, that is all.

      In this day of anonymous blogs and partisan shillery, you need a disclaimer as to the political leanings of your news sources. Especially with a politically charged story like this.

    38. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now is not the time to politicize YouTube!

    39. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Like most people, you're confusing logical argumentation with rational argumentation.

      The source is irrelevant in logical argumentation because the information is either true or false and can be determined as such by a set of logical rules. This has little practical purpose in politics because, contrary to what some rather uninformed people desperately want to believe, very few political matters are clean black and white issues.

      The source is extremely relevant in rational argumentation - which is the practical form of argumentation that normal human beings use when discussing political matters - because the goal of rational argumentation is not to ultimately come to a simple true or false conclusion on a given statement, but to sway opinion that can travel through myriad gray areas. As a result, if a source is consistently proven unreliable and/or biased - both categories which WorldNetDaily firmly falls under - the value of information from the source is necessarily decreased by any rational and honest person.

      In rational argumentation, statements of "fact" have a certain amount of weight attached to them which will sway an honest opinion one way or another to a certain extent. If enough of this weight builds up in one direction, a reasonable opinion can be obtained. That's not logical argumentation.

      WorldNetDaily is not a valid source of neutral or honest information to any person seeking to form a rational opinion on a matter through reason. Its explicit purpose is to cater, for-profit, to extremist neoconservative and paleoconservative (which is always amusing since the two sometimes cross paths and get in little lovers spats) ideologies. It makes no secret of this, and, as a result, most of the information it presents is extraordinarily skewed and misrepresented.

      Just to drive the point home, if you didn't consider sources, you'd be one massively confused individual if you tried to come to an honest opinion on most things.

      + Partisan liberal group A says "George W. Bush is responsible for North Korea's nuclear test because the cameras were removed on his watch and because the inspectors were kicked on his watch".

      + Partisan conservative group B says "Bill Clinton is responsible for North Korea's nuclear test because he gave reactors to them".

      Both supporting statements are technically true so in a purely logical sense you cannot discount either. Yet each one "proves" a completely different point by ommitting crucial information: the liberal group explictly doesn't tell you about Bush's attempt to switch policy to six party talks, and the conservative group explicitly doesn't tell you that the reactors were light water and nearly useless for bomb-making. If you'd have taken a rational approach you could have simply rejected both groups' partisan garbage outright and sought out a more reliable, neutral source that had an interest only in accurately accounting the history surrounding the matter.

      Logical argument != Rational argument just because the two share some similar structures.

    40. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by gfxguy · · Score: 0
      actuall, clinton's deal was a 'carrot and stick' approach. then the GOP congress took away the carrot.


      Only after the mule had already admitted it stopped following it.
      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    41. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really hope that this was just Steven Colbert style sarcasm... because if it wasn't, I feel sorry for people that have to listen to your ignorant views on a daily basis. You Nationalist.

    42. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by cheezedawg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      From the documentation on youtube.com, when users flag a video as being inappropriate, it is forwarded to youtube employees for review. Therefore, the fact that access to the video was indeed limited for a while indicates that the censorship did come from youtube- at least for a while until that decision was overturned.

      --
      "The defense of freedom requires the advance of freedom" - George W Bush
    43. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by gfxguy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, maybe now isn't the time for blame, but for doing something about it. On the other hand, since blame is being handed out, don't you think it ought to go to the people who gave NK nuclear technology with no weapons inspections for years?

      Kim Jong Il has admitted he never followed the agreement that gave him billions of dollars and nuclear components, paid for by American citizens.

      You simply cannot negotiate with these people (dictators). It simply doesn't work.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    44. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait a moment, our current President is criticising our previous President on his foreign policy. Run time error...

    45. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      .. so in the interest of preserving the noble ideal of "critical reading skills" - which all of a sudden carry great weight in this discussion - SeniorFrac, SlashDot, Digg, Google and YouTube are run by *left* wingnuts whose own comments and censorship tilt just a "wee bit to the left".

      Kills me how all these lefties consider themselves so "moderate" when passing judgment on someone to their right..

      Here's one more - all you people frothing at the mouth over Mark Foley (who's long gone) - how 'bout that standing O for child-rapist Congressman Stubbs by the would be house cleaner Pelosi? Washington Post, New York Times, NBCCNNABCCBS, etc. don't talk about it? Consider the source !.....:))

    46. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by geoffspear · · Score: 2

      Nowhere in that documentation or in the terms of use does it state that in the period between flagging and review by YouTube employees, the content will be available with no warning. The "censorship" only "came from youtube" in that their software automatically adds the warning to flagged content. There was absolutely no decision by anyone at YouTube to "censor" a particular video based on its content.

      If I create a document with the text "Bush sucks!" and someone drags it to the recycle bin on my windows computer, can I claim that Microsoft is censoring my political speech? Why not? After all, they created the feature that allows someone to take an action that will create a minor inconvenience if I want to view that speech again.

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    47. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by caseydk · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, this has been going on for quite a while and WND is just now picking it up.

      YouTube - or its viewership - has been blocking videos critical of Islam, terrorism, etc but has hosted Hamas propaganda without comment. One incites violence, the other does not.

    48. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RTFA. YouTube states that just because users report a video as objectionable, it does not automatically censor the video. Once flagged, it then goes to a person who censors the video. YouTube is censoring opposing viewpoints. The party of tolerance.

    49. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by inKubus · · Score: 1

      WorldNetDaily is a right-wing conspiracy rag. Try and search the site for "Waco" for instance...............

      This is not news.

      --
      Cool! Amazing Toys.
    50. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 1
    51. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares what you think?

    52. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by tthomas48 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, except in this case, I think the flagging unnecessary. "A tad conservative" is a tad sarcastic. Anyone with any critical thinking skills would be able to tell from the article that this is just a nutjob spewing. It really has nothing to do with which bias his site has. The article is of such poor quality that it shouldn't be featured on slashdot. Especially when it goes on to detail Google's political bias because of some blogs it hosts on blogger, and the results that search results return. There is a serious lack of any but the most circumstantial evidence of what is going on, and anybody with even a passible knowledge of technology could point out that all of his arguments are fundementally flawed.

      I feel that Google is unfairly biased against ants. I mean look at the first search result if you type in "ant"!

    53. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by hauntingthunder · · Score: 1

      Hmm

      I think the origional poster for got to include the <irony> tags :-)

      --
      You will never get to heaven with an Ak 47... But A Zu 30 is good for Low Flying Cherubim
    54. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by c6gunner · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      What part of it was the stick, exactly? The deal amounted to "we'll give you billions of dollars in aid if you just put aside your nuclear material for a while". There wasn't even any requirement for them to give up the material they had so far produced, only that they place it under "international oversight". That's the equivalent of telling an armed gang that you'll pay them ten million dollars a year if they just put their weapons in a closet and let your buddy Joe take a look at them every now and then. There's no stick, it's just a flat out bribe, and a pointless one at that as it just puts off the problem for future generations to deal with.

      That's Clintons legacy. He bribed North Korea into pretending to be nice, he bombed Iraq without accomplishing anything other than expending the US cruise missile arsenal and killing lots of innocent people, he ignored the terrorism problem which became apparent after the 1993 WTC attack and the USS Cole bombing, and he destroyed Serbia while aiding a well known terrorist organization (the KLA). In other words, he wielded both military and economic might in a totally incompetent fashion, accomplishing nothing other than wasting money and lives in an attempt to appear competent. I'm not a huge fan of Bush, but the guy has been demonized beyond any semblance of reality, while Clinton gets a free pass for his total incompetence. It's sad. At least the right wing in the US can laugh at Bush and point out his mistakes. I've yet to hear a democrat say anything bad about Clinton.

    55. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ayequeue · · Score: 1

      How you know they are just conservatives with an axe to grind:

      In the past it has produced "President Bush" when searchers hunt for "miserable failure."

      And a Google search for "liar" produced as the top choice a site for a biography for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a close ally with President Bush in the war on terror.


      These are given as examples of Google's liberal bias. hahahaha

    56. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 2, Informative

      Questions: Was the bomb that went off made of plutonium or uranium? Which was prohibited by the agreement Clinton forged in 1994 and which stayed in force until Bush pulled out of it in 2002? As for "can't negotiate...," what's your alternative?

      --
      Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
    57. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by christopherfinke · · Score: 1

      Yes, attach the messenger and not the message.

    58. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by overunderunderdone · · Score: 1

      I just watched the video on YouTube.

      Because YouTube removed the flag after all the coverage on it. It WAS indeed flagged as inappropriate and you needed to log in and confirm you were over 18 to view it at that time.

      It's not YouTube per say, it's people flagging the video as inappropriate. That causes the restriction to be put on

      This is wrong. According to YouTube people flagging the video only notifies YouTube of that fact. THEY review it and if they agree that it is inappropriate they flag it as such and restrict access to it... which they did in this case (until backing down).

      While the source of the story is suspect it does raise a valid issue. This is not the only instance where videos have been flagged as inappropriate that didn't violate any of the *stated* reasons for being flagged but WERE outspoken expressions of one political viewpoint (and biting in their criticism of the other end of the political spectrum). It would be interesting to find out if this censorship is for all political expression that is deemed offensive by the other side or if it's only applied to one side of the political spectrum but not another. Otherwise in terms of merely being offensive or insulting YouTube doesn't seem to have particularly high standards.

    59. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by El+Torico · · Score: 1

      My mistake on the grammar. I should have been more consistent on number agreement. Oh well, at least I didn't make that mistake in the same sentence.

      Also, I agree that they are political activists, and I shouldn't be suprised that political activists, of any type, tend to ignore some facts.

      --
      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
    60. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Skye16 · · Score: 1

      I swear to God, it never fails: when I have mod points, I can't find a single article or comment worth spending them on, and when I don't, I find gems like this. Most irritating. +10 Awesome.

    61. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Its better than the level we usually expect of US political propaganda... more a question of ommision and opinions rather than the usual outright lies. Here is the improved version:


      In 1997 madelaine albright gave Kim jong il a basketball and got him to sign a no nukes treaty

      George Bush tore up the treaty because he loves nukes

      Korea launched test missiles, and tested a nuke.


      Sort of like how USians say "why does Gadaffi hate us" after you bombed his house killing his niece

    62. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You rarely here "consider the source" used along with the New York Times - even after doing things like helping Al Qaeda by revealing covert financial surveillance. You rarely hear "consider the source" used along with mentions of CBS - even after they got busted forging documents meant to influence elections. You rarely hear "consider the source" used to warn people about ABC - when they release long known details about his sexual peccadilloes just a few weeks before an election (and "oops" the DNC just happens to have well planned procedures to use Foley in local elections across the country). You rarely hear these warnings because most of the media is liberal, corrupt, homosexualized and treasonous. Sleazy people feel oppressed by those who don't share their corruption.

    63. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by geoffspear · · Score: 1

      And when I search for "miserable failure" and find Michael Moore's website in the top 10 results, that proves Google's conservative bias.

      As for "liar", umm, is Blair a Tory now? Clearly they're displaying anti-Labour bias there.

      Now all I have to do is create a pro-Clinton video, get all of my friends to flag it as objectionable, and prove that YouTube is a right wing organization that censors liberal speech.

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    64. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by gfxguy · · Score: 0, Troll
      The bomb that went off was likely not even nuclear.

      As for "can't negotiate...," what's your alternative?


      Are you implying there's no alternative?

      The alternative is to completely cut this regime off from the rest of the world, stop giving them money and other aid, and perhaps low-yield nuke all the artillery that they have pointed at Seoul.
      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    65. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by iSeal · · Score: 1
      Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story? Has free speach suddenly become restricted for a person that is "just a wee bit" one way or the other? The entire point of the accusation of censorship is that any speech at any level was moderated.


      Yep, it was necessary. The news was coming from a site that literally hates liberals. Their journalistic integrity on giving balanced accounts of events is compromised. For that bias to be made aware is thus quite important. I mean, you wouldn't trust neo-nazis to give straight news about the events in Israel would ya? So why trust conservative nuts to give straight news on things democrat related?

      Which brings me to one thing I'll never get about the US. These "conservative" people are supposedly pro-democratic, and yet consider anyone being part of any party other than the Republicans as unpatriotic/stupid/what-have-you. The likes of this "Anne Coulter" are about as pro-democratic as Kim Jong Il.
    66. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by j_rhoden · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's not an automatic restriction. AS I understand it, it gets flagged as inappropriate and then goes into a queue where they are manually reviewed and tagged by an employee. Which means whichever employee tagged it also thought it was inappropriate.

    67. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 2, Insightful

      They might be wrong about this video, but the fact is that plenty of Michelle Malkin stuff has been outright removed *by youtube*. At the same time, the jihadi videos aren't removed, even if they're flagged. While Michelle Malkin may be controversial, the videos that I've seen which were subsequently removed definitely didn't fit any definition of inappropriate.

    68. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by WeblionX · · Score: 1

      The problem is, no one reports porn. Or that may be a good thing, to some...

      --
      (\(\
      (=_=) Bani!
      (")")
    69. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by advocate_one · · Score: 1

      Just as long as it's not something Steve Ballmer is squirting to his friends and family....

      --
      Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
    70. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      Gee, why do I see this picture of Rumsy and Saddam all of a sudden?

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    71. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      First of all, to get it out of the way, the signature of the blast is generally agreed to coincide with a nuclear detonation. I believe, and I could be wrong of course, that the current understanding is that it was very likely a nuke, but due to imperfections in the device, it tested very poorly. I have seen suggestions that it may have been a nuke designed in a similar manner to the aborted Tallboy device the U.S. attempted to build at first and could never get to work.

      Secondly, "low yield nuking" their artillery would be beyond idiotic. North Korea does have chemical weapons and no surprise force could conceivably take out all the artillery and rockets capable of carrying such yeilds to Seoul before a non-trivial number of responses were made by the North.

      Furthermore, such an activity would almost certainly trigger an immediate and extreme ground retaliation that could kill tens of thousands of South Koreans and a number of U.S. troops.

      What you don't seem to appreciate is the fact that there is no way for the North to win any kind of full scale conflict, but the North is poised to inflict an extreme amount of damage before it comes crashing down in flames. They know that as long as the U.S. is there they can't go toe to toe, but they can make it so that it is undesirable for any force to come up from the South against them.

      There was an excellent article about this strategic problem in the previous Atlantic Monthly (the issue prior to the November '06 release). I suggest you grab hold of it and read up on the matter. It's a very nasty situation for everyone involved, and such simplistic plans are widely believed to be of no value because of the enormous loss of life they would cause to Americans and South Koreans before the North could be completely stopped.

    72. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, from all reports NK really WAS researching nuclear power as per the agreement until the US broke-off that treaty, then NK switched to 'stick'.

      Frankly, I'd rather the crazy people have nuclear power than nuclear bombs. It's quite difficult to put a 2MW plant on a missile and fire it at somebody, and then the people would complain about no longer having power.

    73. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ben+there... · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but don't let facts get in the way of conservative opinion:
      http://www.worldnetdaily.com/polls/index.asp?VIEW_ RESULTS=Y

      ---

      What are your thoughts about YouTube censoring videos with a conservative point of view?
      Now that YouTube is owned by Google, we'll be seeing a lot more of this censoring
      62.25% (1258)

      Perhaps a boycott of YouTube advertisers would get someone's attention
      18.75% (379)

      YouTube is a private business - it doesn't have to be fair
      6.33% (128)

      Censorship only makes people want to see it more
      4.21% (85)

      I wouldn't mind as long as both sides were censored equally
      2.92% (59)

      Other
      1.68% (34)

      YouTube was just making itself more attractive to Google to make the $1.65 billion sale go through
      1.29% (26)

      YouTube's not censoring conservatives - this is just another example of the radical right whining when its message is rejected in the marketplace
      1.14% (23)

      The anti-Clinton ad wasn't 'censored' - it just required viewers to 1st verify their age
      0.89% (18)

      Good - I found the blocked videos offensive
      0.54% (11)

      TOTAL VOTES: 2021

    74. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by VJ42 · · Score: 1

      Blair a Tory now?

      There's a school of thought that Blair has always been a tory; he just happens to be in charge of the Labour party. Personally, I think he epitomises all that's wrong with IngSoc^W Nu Labour.

      --
      If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
    75. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oooooh, rant alert on maximum ! Dude, Rumsfeld was the ONLY american on the board of directors of the company that sold the two light-water reactors to North Korea. Legacy schmegacy ... they're all lining their pockets at the expense of the masses.

    76. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Maybe you should learn a little more about the agreement before you bash it.

      Under the agreement made by Clinton, the north koreans _were_ supposed to give up their plutonium after we built them two nuclear power plants of the kind that cannot be used to produce weapons grade materials. We then cut funding to the building of the two power plants so they never got built, so we never got the plutonium from them. If you want to blame someone for this blame congress for not funding the power plants.

      Or, Bush for not doing anything to stop them from breaking the seal and using the plutonium.

      Yeah, I guess Clinton should have done more to make sure the North Koreans could never build a nuke, but he didn't know the president after him would so totally ignore the problem and screw it up so bad!

      The stick, by the way, was the threat of war, which, by all accounts, was a very real possibility.

    77. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the heck is that about Clinton and Iraq? The Clinton no fly zones etc worked very succesfully. The country remained stable, the kurds were protected (and are going on to build a stable society).

      Bush on the other hand? I hope you are kidding. Six years of work with N. Korea and Iran and look where he has gotten us! Bush's threats of force are NOT CREDIBLE, because everyone knows no one would trust him to use force. Iran and N. Korea are safe to go on becoming nuclear powers, while we remain bogged down in Iraq. Inspectors were on the ground in Iraq until Bush forced them out.

      Under Clinton the National Debt as a % of GDP went down, you republicans are bankrupting the country.

      Under Bush, torture is sanctioned, the guy who one a supreme court case against bush is fired from the military. Republicans should be ashamed, they are proponets of what is becoming a gutter ideology

    78. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Caspian · · Score: 1

      "Conservative" has become a "dirty word" among intelligent people all across America because in America, "conservative" usually means "gay-bashing religious zealot".

      --
      With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
    79. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      Bush's legacy: Give the money to Haliburton instead. Watch how violence doesn't become less. Complain it's all ouTube's fault.

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    80. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by idontgno · · Score: 1

      Ah, excellent--you see my point. (Thank $DIETY someone does; that just goes to show that sarcasm should be applied with a teaspoon and not with a trowel. I did my argument no good with my heavy hand.)

      Anyways, yes; the tag was -1 Redundant. I'm not afraid to let people draw their own conclusions; if they're susceptible to "follow-the-dots", I don't care about their opinion anyways. An open-eyed examination of TFA and its compadres on the site is sufficient. But I'm not going to take anyone else's word on it, and I'm annoyed that anyone else thinks I (or anyone else) should.

      I feel that Google is unfairly biased against ants. I mean look at the first search result if you type in "ant"!

      LOL, only ants that are not members of a specific Southwest American native nation. Google hatez teh black antz! Tehy are teh RASCIZTS!

      Ooops, got carried away again.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    81. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Verdict · · Score: 1

      Ahh, the always brilliant advocation of nuclear weapon use. When using your big sticks is considered a legitimate fallback point, you've obviously failed.

    82. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Homology · · Score: 1
      The present crisis with regards to North-Korea and nuclear weapons is a result of the Bush administration's extreme hardline policies. Clinton at least made progress, and Bush reneged on deals made with North-Korea. The fact is that North-Korea has very real fears of US agression, and Iraq shows very well what happens if you are percieved as weak by USA.

      There have been many warnings during these last years that the extreme hardline policies does not work, and will convince the North-Korean leadership that USA will invade them. Many will blame USA for this, and rightly so.

      Clinton had his faults, but Bush and his croonies are maniacs.

    83. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Lars+T. · · Score: 1

      So videos of actual Bush blunders incite violence?

      --

      Lars T.

      To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck

    84. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      "At least the right wing in the US can laugh at Bush and point out his mistakes. I've yet to hear a democrat say anything bad about Clinton."

      What a world you must live in where a slight bombing of iraq, handing written plans to the next administration RE terrorism and paying off a nuclear power so they dont k-line seoul is as bad as killing indiscriminantly 600 000 iraqies, erroding almost completely 900 years of criminal law, and abusing the rights and justices of all mankind. You people so deserve someone like bu$hitler in power. So deserve it.

    85. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm, you DO realize that there's a huge and critical difference between what YouTube does and what it's users do, right?

    86. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by freedom_surfer · · Score: 1

      Its really simple.

      How much nuclear material in North Korea was produced under Clinton's watch and how much was produced under Bush's?

      I think you'll be unpleasantly surprised...

      Are republicans ever responsible for anything? Talk about 'finger pointing'...

    87. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by crabpeople · · Score: 3, Informative
      "Because a tenet of critical reading skills is to pigeonhole your source"

      You're right. As I am sure its an unbiased site, lets take a sampling of other headlines from this wonderful site:

      Why liberals channel Lucifer
            - By Kevin McCullough

      The underestimated communicator
            - By David Limbaugh
      (Pro bush article)

      More talk won't stop nuclear Iran
            - By Jerome Corsi

      And regarding the video (did you even watch it?), it was just complete flamebait and should have been blocked. I mean it was from the director of scary movie, aka fart jokes for 10 year olds.. His political intelligence obviously hasnt matured much beyond that.
      Do you also hate it when people forwarn you about going to goatse links? Or would you prefer that goatse wasn't "pigeonholled"?

      --
      I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
    88. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by OwnedByTwoCats · · Score: 1

      The result of Clinton's "Failed" policy was that the DPRK's nuclear program was frozen. No plutonium was produced or turned into weapons. Carrot and stick.

      The result of Bush's "Successful" policy was that the DPRK's nuclear program was un-frozen. Enough plutonium was reprocessed for 6 to 10 weapons. More plutonium is being produced.

      Those who claim that Clinton's policy failed or that Bush's policy succeeded are obviously pro communist dictator.

    89. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i've been pretty freely laughing at both of them. I'm also not so sure about the At least the right wing in the US can laugh at Bush and point out his mistakes bit though, people pointing out errors in Bush policy have been getting labeled anti-US and pro-terrorist like it's suddenly not possible to dislike one person. And on top of that, when I read your views against Clinton I kept getting them mixed up with Bush's - Iraq, so far it's 3 generations of fuck ups there, starting to seem like an american hobby for both camps and IMHO Bush's Iraq strategy is a pretty resounding failure and soon to get even worse with his allies backing out calling it quits - ignored terrorism, yeah, like Bush's office ignoring their own intelligence reports on that issue which some say may have stopped 9/11 in the first place, and on top of that with his war on terror flag waving so far when Clinton was the closest to killing Bin Laden.
       
      I would also hardly bring up economy with Bush in office, your dollar is supposed to go the other way.
       
      And to top it off, the aid didn't entirely come through, North Korea were supposed to have nuclear plants built according the deal/bribe instead they got a plot of land that says "nuclear plant goes here".

    90. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by stunt_penguin · · Score: 1

      ".... he bombed Iraq without accomplishing anything..."

      Bullshit. Operation Desert Fox in 1998 eliminated the final vestiges of any chemical and nuclear programmes under Sadaam Hussein, and caused him to fear for his power; he ordered thousands of arrests in the following weeks, and his regime was unstable for months afterwards.

      Desert Fox exceeded expectations.

      --
      When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
    91. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by OwnedByTwoCats · · Score: 1

      What color is the sky on your planet?

      As far as accomplishing "wasting money and lives in an attempt to appear competent", the current resident of the White House wins that competition hands down.

    92. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by jackbird · · Score: 1

      "Gay-bashing religious zealot" is just their cover, vote-getter, and tool of obfuscation. "Enricher of the elites by any means, without limitation" is what it actually means.

    93. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Consertives like the Liberal Media consperancy. While I don't see it much as a conspericy it is just the fact that Liberal Make more news then Consertives do.
      In basic concept Liberals want to work for change vs. Consertives who want to keep the things the way they are or were.
      Being Consertive values historically dont get on the news much because they stand up for the way things are, and it doesn't make good news.
      Fictional Example:
      A liberal group lobbying to make all stop signs Triangles vs. Octagons. vs
      A Consertive group lobbying to make sure all stop signs Stay Octagons.

      Well being that most stop signs in America are already Octagon The group is less newworthy because if they win there will be little effect on our daily lives. Vs. the Liberal cause which could cause us to relearns what a stop sign looks like. Hense getting more news.

      The new bread of Consertive news stations are less focused on the news but making sure that their arguments are more covered, being that consertive news is really typically not that newsworthy they tend to focus on how the liberal cause is breaking what works and all the people stopping the consertive cause to be heard.

      I think the full root of the problem is that News is trying to keep the views entertained about what is happening vs. just giving the facts in the ideal world News would give equal coverage to the Triangle Stop sign and the Octagon status quo. But views will call in and ask for more info about this Triangle Stop Sign and ask why is it needed...

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    94. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      Yes, an attack would be premature at this point, but what I'm saying is that negotiations do not work - all the U.N. does is give N.K. and Iran (and previously Iraq) warning after warning without actually doing anything.

      Of course, sanctions get panned because all the poor civilians in N.K. are the ones affected.

      However, once bitten twice shy should be the rule. No more negotiations.

      Instead of an attack, we should bolster missile defences and prepare for the worst.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    95. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shhh. Everytime you try to correct the revisonists a kitty dies.

    96. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by truesaer · · Score: 1

      I guess you never got the memo that Congress never funded the agreement, so he wasn't given the money or lightwater reactors. They ought to all resign due to incompetence.

    97. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by smitth1276 · · Score: 1
      According to the very article cited by this post, which you apparently didn't read, YouTube claims that flagged videos are not automatically removed. They are sent to a queue, and no video is removed due to flagging until it is reviewed by a human being on the YouTube staff. So you are apparently incorrect... they ARE censoring content. They only removed the restriction after the WorldNetDaily article ran and brought a lot of bad PR.

      Maryrose, of The YouTube Team, said if any video viewer flags a video as inappropriate, it is forwarded to a queue for the company's customer support team to review.

      "Videos are NEVER automatically removed simply because they've been flagged," Maryrose said. "Every single flagged video is reviewed by someone at YouTube who then determines if the video contains material that is against our terms of use."
    98. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      Really? I suppose when a police officer uses his gun, he's failed?

      I see many failings of both the left and right, but one failing I've noticed about ultra liberals is they think that because they consider themselves reasonable people, that everybody else can also be reasoned with. This simply is not true.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    99. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Dachannien · · Score: 1

      "It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative"

      Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story?


      Yes. Otherwise, you wouldn't have the delicious hypocrisy of Slashdot accusing another website of political bias.

    100. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait, so you mean that if I want to create a buzz around my video and get people to watch it, I can just have my friends flag it as inappropriate (or create a bunch of bogus accounts and do it myself), then scream to the world that I'm being censored?

      Oh, but no one would ever do that. It'd be...dishonest...

    101. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Exactly.

      The only solution to North Korea is China, and it's always been only China.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    102. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by irenaeous · · Score: 1

      Your analysis of Clinton's efforts is not correct. The 1998 operation desert fox where Clinton expended all those cruise missiles was a great success. It degraded Saddam's ability to produced WMDs. The same oversight and containment prevented Saddam from another slaughter of the Kurds. Bush was later able to build on this success and get Saddam to agree to having international weapons inspectors again. These inspectors pretty much demonstrated that Saddam no longer had WMDs before the Iraq war. If Bush had stopped there, he would have looked like a genius. Instead, he has made a mess of things with the Iraq war. We have now lost our ability to use the threat of force as a diplomatic tactic, because our forces are pinned down in Iraq. We have been weakened, allowing kooks like Kim-Jong-Il to be emboldened and go forwarded with Nuke development. Also, by destroying the Iraqi government completely due to incompetence, we have upset the balance of power in the mid-east in favor of Iran. Compared to Bush, Clinton's policies was moderate, reasonable. He used containment to counter threats and abuses by Saddam.

      He was also successful in Serbia. He managed to use enough force to get Serbia to end their program of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and brought the UN in to act as a buffer between various ethnic groups and ended the pogroms and slaughters happening in that part of the world.

      Regarding taking out Osama. Hindsight is 20-20. Before 9-11, Osama was not regarded as having the same level of threat. It was a judgment call deciding between the getting him no matter what, and between causing an international uproar over American interventionism, or a national uproar over "wag the dog" type accusations from the Republican party. In hindsight, I think we can say that he made mistakes in not getting Osama when he had the chance, but it was a difficult judgment call. He still acted responsibly and professionally. I wish I could say the same of Bush, but it sure seems to me that he provoked an unnecessary and costly war for no good reason, for his own personal reasons -- irresponsible and unprofessional behavior.

      I agree that Clinton should have been tougher on North Korea, but Bush policies have now left us with no real options then hoping that China can reign them in. We are in a much worse position with regard to North Korea now, then we were under Clinton.

      I agree that Bush has been demonized by the left in ridiculous ways with absurd conspiracy theories and false accusations of many kinds. Neither was Clinton perfect. But the Bush policy in Iraq, and his foreign policy over all has been a catastrophe. And, yes, I voted for the guy. It's sad really.

    103. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Teun · · Score: 1
      "It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative"

      Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story?

      Not everybody nows the US press landscape that well, so for me it was a constructive note.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    104. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Its about how talking to dictators generally doesnt change them and actually allows them to flourish."

      Of course the Bush approach of ignoring NK entirely for the past 6 years has worked wonders. How long does Bush have to be president for things that happen under his watch, like, say NK developing Nuclear weapons, are his fault? I fully expect to hear "its all Clinton's fault" when Madagascar developes Nukes in 2048. So much for the party of personal responsibility.

      Also, does this mean we shouldn't be talking to our new best friend Musharraf? And to link the two, isn't Pakistan the country that helped NK with nuclear technology?

    105. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by eepok · · Score: 1

      ' "It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative" Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story? '

      Yes. When citing sources, one must always note whether or not the reader should note a form of bias. The statement about WND was a humorous understatement, like "The Weekly World News is known to post fiction here and there."

      What happened here is that SOMEONE reported the censoring of a political ad (act that most Slashdot'rs find abhorrent) but that the source could be possibly blowing the situation out of proportion for the sake of a political agenda and thus the referrenced article should be take not for complete truth, but at least for the spark of conversation and investigation. Oddly enough, most everyone else caught on to this. In the future, we'll make sure to minimize sarcasm and humorous undertones.


      "People will always mod down speech they don't agree with, completely disregarding said person or organization's absolute right to say it."

      If you don't think Slashdot mods are moderating fairly, then meta-moderate. If you think that everyone in Slashdot is squelching your speech, then check out the Slashdot posting guidelines and read up on the posts that are most likely to be modded down and attempt to make some connections.


      "Disappointing indeed that the "flagged" content wasn't reviewed by YouTube and simply left be, being that it doesn't violate the terms of use of the site."

      No one said it did. You're crossing two separate systems that attempt to perform the same function in a community. One is community moderation, the other is system moderation. If you were verbally acosted by a stranger on the street, would you claim that the federal government is repressing your right to travel on public roads? Of course not. The video was flagged by many as inappropriate (justly or unjustly) and was removed. Unless someone reports the removal as unjust, the YouTube admins can never know if the mis-use of community power has occured. Refusal to review the content after a protest of the removal would be irresponsible on YouTube's behalf, but that isn't the case, now, is it?

    106. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ClassMyAss · · Score: 1

      If you look at the other articles on the WND site, a good part of it is them bitching about anti-Conservative Googlebombs and stuff like that; apparently they feel that it's perfectly reasonable to accuse companies of bias for not enforcing neutral POV on all their users. Sorry, guys - the Internet ain't all Wikipedia, and out here people actually have opinions.

      Plus, while I'm not in favor of censorship of most things, I can't say I'm too disappointed in Google for discarding some of the anti-gay propaganda that these guys have been complaining about. Yes, maybe it's not as bad as it comes, as it's generally not advocating violence or anything like that, but if you look at most of the anti-gay sites and replace the word "homosexual" with "black," the message becomes unambiguously offensive. I understand that these nutters don't think sexuality is as worthy of protection as race, but I think that said substitution is a fair litmus test for whether something will get advertised by Google; after all, sexual orientation is considered important by Google, whether or not it is by you.

    107. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by gfxguy · · Score: 1

      I wanted to expand on this: when did the U.S. start losing wars? When we decided they had to completely end in three months with no casualties and our troops home by Christmas.

      Sometimes you've got to take one on the chin to be ultimatley victorious - we'll never "win" peace by negociating with certain types.

      It's basic psychology - if you reward bad behavior, you are only going to encourage more of it. It's really quite simple.

      --
      Stupid sexy Flanders.
    108. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by beckerist · · Score: 1

      And the stick... well the stick is called Justice!

      The stick once waved the American Flag. Now it just beats dead donkeys and Iraqi civilians...

      The stick once stood for power, and speaking softly. Now it stands for corruption and speaking "nook-you-lerly."

      ...damn the stick...

    109. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by benplaut · · Score: 1

      Score 2 redundent, and yet it's the first post in the thread. Welcome to slashdot.

    110. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ROMRIX · · Score: 1

      YouTube is moderated. If something is flagged by a user it is sent to a moderator who then decides to block the content. That would be censorship if the content was still blocked after meeting the TOS guidelines. Which it was blocked. And it is censorship. Because it did meet the guidelines.

      Dumb @ss...

    111. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What, the same WorldNetDaily that reports on such "news" as "Kerry tied to '666'?" or "Violence in Israel caused by 'gay' event?" Maybe you should replace "wee bit conservative" with something more appropriate, like "completely insane" or "totally unreliable"?

    112. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wow, I can already tell where you get your news by your dropping slogans like "all carrot no stick." The "stick" we had under Clinton was on-site inspections and cameras installed in NK's reactor(s). The problems arose when NK tried to build another reactor in secret and Bush walked away from diplomacy. For some reason he thinks that diplomacy is a reward for good behavior. In reality, you use diplomacy to impose limits on your enemies through some given and take. The dynamics always change and shady characters like KJI are always going to try topush the limits and cheat. The trick is to maintain your containment. Now, under Bush's "we're taking our ball and going home" approach, we've got a NK testing bombs. Now, which President is the fuckup?

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    113. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by bjohnson · · Score: 1

      Oh, come ON, this is WorldNetDaily.... it's not that they're stupid or dishonets, it's that they're moron wingnuts:

      "IT'S A KILLER KLINTON KLENIS KLOWN KONSPIRACY!!!"

    114. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Atzanteol · · Score: 1
      And one of the tenets of a good argument is logic.

      One must be careful though as the line between "considering the source" and "poisoning the well" is very thin. "He says he wants to lower taxes, but he's a *democrat* so he probably won't!" See what I mean? We hear this type of fallacy all the time. In fact, I would say that Hemos' note about WND being conservative was wholly unecessary and a good example of poisoning the well. Whether they are republicans, democrats, communists or fried eggs has no bearing on the truth of what they claim.

      --
      "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

      - Charles Darwin
    115. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Atzanteol · · Score: 1
      Are you claiming that if it wasn't a conservative group complaining that the complaint would be valid then? If not, then *how* does their bias have any bearing on the truth of the claim?

      Hint: It doesn't. A liberal group making the same claim would still be just as wrong.

      --
      "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

      - Charles Darwin
    116. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by jmorris42 · · Score: 1

      > Was this comment absolutely necessary or even relevant to the story?

      Perhaps not. But it IS true. Look, I have a hundred freaks here on /. and I'd say at least 95 are because of my willingness to post commnets that go against the socialist grain here in the hivemind. Even I consider worldnetdaily to be slightly scary. Besides being a canonical example of how NOT to design a website, it is where our side's black helicopter chasers hang out. It isn't quite as bad as Daily Kos and certainly not in the same level of insanity as the 911 Truth crowd, but pretty out there.

      And I think the same level of non clue that leads them to have such a disfunctional website accounts for them calling censorship on YouTube incorrectly. What happened is the usual 'free inquiry and debate' typical of the modern left. THEY flagged it as 'naughty' because that is their standard response. Anyone who disagrees with a liberal is a bigot, racist, homophobe, intolerant, ignorant monster and must never be debated on the merits of what is said, critics must be silenced. Same shit, different day. Happens to me every time I post here, I'm used to it.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
    117. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by jmorris42 · · Score: 1

      > While Michelle Malkin may be controversial, the videos that I've seen which were subsequently removed definitely didn't fit any definition
      > of inappropriate.

      Exactly, this is the fight we should be having with YouTube. Malkin isn't a case of moonbats flooding the automated complaint button, that was a decision by an actual human at YouTube. What should, and what probably will once the stink gets bad enough, is her account will be reactivated and flagged as not being subject to user flagging. In other words, as a professional her work will get the benefit of the doubt that it is appropriate unless she does something so extreme another human judgement will need to be made; something that probably won't happen because she IS a pro.

      --
      Democrat delenda est
    118. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by jafac · · Score: 1

      Its about how talking to dictators generally doesnt change them and actually allows them to flourish.

      I guess I should stop talking to George Bush now.

      Seriously though - has Bush's passive-agressive approach of "not talking" to Kim Jong Il yielded any success?

      Clinton's Approach: zero NK nukes.
      Bush's Approach: 4-10 nukes, one test.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    119. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're not expanding on anything I said and I'll thank you not to tie my statements into your violent ideology.

      I reject your entire thesis and I reject your simple-minded suggestion that violence can be a reasonable way to enforce peace in any sustainable way. I also reject your simple-minded suggestion that foreign policy is such an obvious and simple matter.

    120. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by mikelieman · · Score: 1

      "But when anybody who has committed the grievous error of being conservative has anything to say, we learn about the essentials of using knowledge of bias to sieve information."

      It's not the CONSERVATIVES. It's the Neocon Party Whores.

      The difference is, CONSERVATIVES hate Bush for increasing a 67 Trillion Dollar Debt.

      Neocon Party Whores don't CARE what Bush does, as long as they can dump on the "Other Team".

      --
      Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
    121. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by mikelieman · · Score: 1

      It didn't mention that during Clinton, North Korea's WMD development was STOPPED COLD, with UN inspectors, Seals, Video surveillance and Mk I Eyeball Surveillance for EIGHT YEARS, then Bush comes along and in 3 years while he's dicking around in Iraq ( NOT A THREAT ) our "Friends" in Pakistan are helping North Korea develop nukes.

      But hey, Blame Clinton, cause you know, 8 years of shutting down the program doesn't count.

      --
      Technology -- No Place For Wimps! Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia Chatroom -- http://www.wemissjerry.org
    122. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When a police office uses his gun, he HAS failed. Maybe the situation the cop was in had no other solution, but it doesn't change the fact that it's a failure to have to use deadly force.

      What you seem to be missing is that you can get into no-win situations. Maybe Mr. Dictator Guy can't be reasoned with, but if we go in shooting and getting thousands of people killed, we've failed too. If we get ourselves into the situation where thats the only solution, then we have to do it, but we've already failed.

      The successful solution limits death and destruction, the failing solution expands them.

    123. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by AcidLacedPenguiN · · Score: 1
      then the GOP congress took away the carrot.
      Only to replace it with a cigar. . .
      --
      disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
    124. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course they deserve fairness, don't be ridiculous.

      First of all, the loss of a loved one does not make a person's opinion more valid than anyone else's. An honest person would count that loss AGAINST them, in fact, because it has the nasty side effect of potentially clouding their judgement with emotion.

      Regardless, everybody deserves fairness. People are supposed to be rational human beings. If Coulter or O'Reilly or WND starts (rather, continues) lying to people, or starts (rather, continues) to selectively edit information to give inaccurate accounts of things, what's the problem? The liars, or the people who just go ahead and trust them? If you really give people like Coulter and O'Reilly the once over, you'll realize that neither of them appears to really be qualified to be spouting the opinions they are. Who's to blame that people listen to them, the people shouting the opinions, or the yahoos who didn't bother to see if these folks actually had any kind of credentials that gives their opinions any sort of validity?

      The founding fathers didn't go for any of this socialist claptrap American "modern iberals" push today, which is why they're not "modern liberals", they're socialists who don't want to be accurately labeled. You know what John Locke or Voltaire would have probably said about this:

      Well then quit being a whiny butthead and go out and counter the lies so people can think it over and come to a more accurate conclusion on these matters.

      They deserve fairness because if you take it away from them, all you're doing is usurping their position as filthy liars.

    125. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by From+A+Far+Away+Land · · Score: 1

      Some moderators saw fit to moderate me a troll, and the troll under me Up, after he was modded previously down to Troll where his comment belonged. My opinion is as valid as any other's on the web, and the fact that a troll felt it important enough to respond to my comment, is proof enough that people care.

      The myth of a "liberal media" bias needs to die when it's just a myth. The "liberal media" is the corporate media, that's why it doesn't make sense a lot of the time. It's all about entertainment, not about informing the public. That's what's so neat about YouTube, is that the people can vote on what are the real news stories, and the ratings numbers show up for all to see them.

    126. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by hcob$ · · Score: 1

      That's not what UCLA Political Scientists find.

      Media Bias is Real

      --
      Cliff Claven
      K.E.G. Party Chairman
      Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
    127. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ksheff · · Score: 1

      The article is of such poor quality that it shouldn't be featured on slashdot.

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! that would imply that /. has someone dedicated to quality control. Maybe they can tackle that one after duplicate stories on the front page.
      --
      the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
    128. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or maybe WorldNetDaily flagged the video itself in order to make a stink.

    129. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by From+A+Far+Away+Land · · Score: 2, Informative

      That looks like a load of crap. Of course there is bias in the media, but they make up their own criteria for what "left", "center", and "right" is. It's not something so easily defined.

      "The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found."

      Since it found something on Fox News to be "centrist" I take the whole study to be highly suspect, given what is public knowledge about the ownership and operational history of Fox News. The study didn't even take into account other global media outlets that cover American news, as a sort of sample control group.

    130. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's Clintons legacy. He bribed North Korea into pretending to be nice,

      Which included not actually producing any nuclear weapons.

      he bombed Iraq without accomplishing anything other than expending the US cruise missile arsenal

      And destroyed the last of Saddam's chemical weapons production capacity.

      and killing lots of innocent people,

      Compared to the 600k Iraqis which have died thanks to the invasion and occupation of Iraq?

      he ignored the terrorism problem which became apparent after the 1993 WTC attack and the USS Cole bombing,

      The USS Cole bombing which Bush choose to do nothing about. The investigation was ongoing until very late in Clinton's presidency, he chose to let the next President decide on the course of action. Bush chose to do nothing. Considering that the Republicans screamed "Wag the Dog" every time Clinton tried to address terrorism, that he was able to accomplish as much as he did is remarkable.

      and he destroyed Serbia while aiding a well known terrorist organization (the KLA).

      Well we can see that your sympathies lies with genocidal madmen as long as they're killing Muslims.

      In other words, he wielded both military and economic might in a totally incompetent fashion, accomplishing nothing other than wasting money and lives in an attempt to appear competent. I'm not a huge fan of Bush, but the guy has been demonized beyond any semblance of reality, while Clinton gets a free pass for his total incompetence. It's sad. At least the right wing in the US can laugh at Bush and point out his mistakes. I've yet to hear a democrat say anything bad about Clinton.

      Please, maybe you should get your facts from something other than Fox News.

    131. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by shaitand · · Score: 1

      Sorry but when I hear this conjecture about might have been a nuke, might not have been all that appears in my mind are Iraqi nuke tubes that have nothing to do with nukes at all.

    132. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by unsigned+integer · · Score: 1

      Remind me again if I'm supposed to laugh or cry at this statement?

    133. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      A problem is that one way to enrich plutonium to weapons grade it to place concentrated plutonium in a reactor and generate electricity with it. Out side power generation it really isn't procticle though. There are better ways.

      So, if a traditional nuclear power plant is operational long enough to use one unit of fuel, it has just produced an equal amount of weapons grade stuff. There are ways to use it further wich make it unsuitible for weapons production but can we guarentee it would be done? If the crazies have nuclear power, it just takes them one step closer to bombs. That was the original intention of US nuclear power generating plants.

    134. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      LOL, Everyone bitched because he went it alone in Iraq (even though that statment was wrong) and now everyone is bitching because he isn't going it alone with NK. Make up your damn minds, is doing it alone the right way or is multilateral talks the right way? And bush's concern is that there are ways to have bi lateral talks within the 6 party convention. NK does't want to do that wich leads any normal person to believe that NK is only out to break up the 6 party talks completly and nothing good will come from it.

      Is there anything that would be different? realisticly, could bush do anything to make it different? Or is this just another "the election is close" tpye news story designed to get dems to the polls.

      It is amazing that stuff no one ever cared about 6 months ago is being recited from the mouths of idiots on both sides. Elections and politicing seem to bring the parrot out in everyone.

    135. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ravenshrike · · Score: 1

      One test, that either failed miserably, was a test nuke, of was a fake.

    136. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by LeoDioxide · · Score: 0

      Going through school, I don't remember a single teacher telling me to "consider the source" when reading or ".....audience" when writing. In fact, the teachers preferred when you just accepted what was said without question.

    137. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by GoatPigSheep · · Score: 0

      Liberals typically resort to censoring those who do not agree with their views. It's too bad, because there are lots of liberal garbage videos online like "loose change".

      Give the Liberals and supporters of Islamofacism a chance to censor something and they will.

      --
      GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
    138. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by idontgno · · Score: 1

      That was beautiful. Well reasoned. Backed up by a fairly comprehensive understanding of rhetoric and logic.

      And, unfortunately, off the point.

      Probably my fault, really; I didn't couch my objections well.

      I agree entirely with you: Always consider the source. By all means. Communications isn't about what's said, but what's not said, and WHY (to both).

      My point, really, was not "don't consider the source", but "don't take someone else's shallow sound-niblet characterization of a source for granted".

      Again, let me reiterate: I am of the opinion that WorldNetDaily is nuttier than the entier Planters' corporate operation and makes Joseph Goebbels look like Ted Kennedy. But dammit, I worked for that opinion and I earned that opinion. I did not take J. Random Slashbot's word for it. Anything less is intellectual laziness.

      Critical thinking indeed.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    139. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by ClassMyAss · · Score: 1

      It's not the choice between going it alone and not going it alone that bothers me; it's the choice of where we're going at all! I don't know if you remember, but during the leadup to the war, there were a whole lot of people asking why Bush & Co. were so eager to go into Iraq (where there was no real indication of nuclear programs) and so reluctant to address the looming North Korea problem. This is one of the main reasons Bush's opponents suspect ulterior motive - in North Korea we actually could have had more international support, as there was unambiguous evidence that Kim Jong Il was succeeding in his quest for nuclear weapons. So why focus on Iraq? It just doesn't make sense based on the rationale we were given.

      [That said, I don't think it was for money or oil, or even to justify scaling back personal freedoms, despite what the conspiracy theorists would claim - if I had to guess, the hawks were well-intentioned but just mistakenly thought Iraq would be an easy warm-up battle to boost public support for the fights that really mattered]

      If the cause is just, by all means, we should go it alone. But let's at least make sure we're going to the right place - thanks to the thing in Iraq, North Korea has essentially been given a two year free pass to do whatever the hell it wants while we waste time in the desert...

      And by the way, Bush doesn't seem to be choosing between going it alone and multilateral talks. He appears to be just stubbornly refusing to take any tangible action on the issue at all, which is what I object to.

    140. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by tbannist · · Score: 1

      I suppose you could say that it was satire. However, I don't think so. What was the video satirizing?

      North Korea may have developed a nuclear bomb, but it's 6 years after Bush became president and 14 years after the Republican took control of congress. So how is it the Democrats fault that North Korea may have developed a nuclear weapon? Essentially it's taking an incident of good manners (giving your host a gift), and using it without substantiation or corroboration to accuse the Democrats of working for terrorists.

      Most importantly, this is Condaleezza Rice's watch not Madeline Albright's. If the video were critizing the current secretary of state rather than one from 6 years ago, it might actually have some relevance.

      Combine that with the simple fact that the U.S. has more enemies now than it did 6 years ago, and you should be able to see that the facts actually contradict the assertions of the narrator. Add in the fact that 9/11 happened on Bush's watch and that his administration was specifically warned about al'Queda and still chose to lower their watchfulness and you might begin to see a pattern of hypocrisy forming. A pattern where all of the current administrations troubles are blamed on their predecessors even when they've had plenty of time to make their own personal impact.

      Obviously, I found the video neither funny nor satirical, it's just a baseless accusation that says "North Korea has the bomb because Madeline Albright gave them a basketball six years ago". It doesn't even remotely make sense.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    141. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by makomk · · Score: 1

      According to the very article cited by this post, which you apparently didn't read, YouTube claims that flagged videos are not automatically removed. They are sent to a queue, and no video is removed due to flagging until it is reviewed by a human being on the YouTube staff. So you are apparently incorrect... they ARE censoring content. They only removed the restriction after the WorldNetDaily article ran and brought a lot of bad PR.

      AFAIK, at no point was the video removed - and the article doesn't claim that it was. It just had a warning and required you to show that you were 18+ for a while. This is why it's important to pay close attention to exactly what an article is and isn't claiming, especially when it's from an untrustworthy source like this one. (This article brought to you by the "how-to-decieve-without-lies" dept.)

    142. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by the_mad_potato · · Score: 1
      "don't take someone else's shallow sound-niblet characterization of a source for granted"
      Well, frankly, AFAIC, Slashdot write-ups fall under everything I said above just as much as WND does. I'm pretty well convinced at this point that most of the inciteful rhetoric they put in these things is for the sole purpose of generating ad revenue.
    143. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by theLOUDroom · · Score: 1

      However, it is also worth pointing out the pervasive hypocrisy.

      So do it already!

      For example, during all the instantiations of Robert A Kennedy's election conspiracy theories, the +5 modded comments have taught us the error of judging the validity of content by the politics of the source.

      Still waiting....
      "Consider the source" does not mean "Dismiss all information form someone whose political viewpoints do not agree with your own."

      In short, people only care about logical fallacies when they're not amicable to their own personal cause.

      Perhaps you should drop the straw man arguments if you're going to bitch about logical fallacies.

      You are implying that either no one with stated politcal views can but modded +5, or we're all a bunch of hippocrites.

      --
      Life is too short to proofread.
    144. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by presidentbeef · · Score: 1

      Most likely, someone flagged it because it's essentially a political lie.

      Where? I saw it and saw satire and comedy, but nothing outright dishonest. If you disagree with it, does that make it a lie?

      I found the video hilarious, personally. But maybe I don't understand the politics enough to see that it isn't funny.

      --
      Everything I need to know about copyrights I learned from Slashdot.
    145. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by crucini · · Score: 1

      I generally agree, but negotiations did work with the Russian soviets. For example, we negotiated SALT treaties. If the agreement is structured so both parties have a continuing incentive to keep following it, and both parties are rational actors (big assumption) it is viable. I think your real complaint is that we shouldn't give NK rewards for being evil.

    146. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      The deal made with North Korea was no more "progress" than my example of paying a bribe to a gang to get them to hide their weapons. Both are 100% futile, and both only make your enemy stronger, while putting off the problem for future generations to deal with. You seeing it as progress is illustrative of the problem with the left-leaning westerners these days. You don't understand that negotiating with certain types of people is pointless. You'd negotiate with a grizzly bear as it advances towards you.

    147. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      "Desert Fox exceeded expectations."

      While that line is correct, it's not difficult to exceed your expectations when you aim low in the first place.

      The rest of it is utter nonsense. You can't destroy a chemical or nuclear program from the air, unless you have accurate intel on all the locations where it's being carried out. The only reason people are able to make that claim with a straight face is because the US found no WMD when they finally re-invaded. Until then there was absolutely no way to verify Saddams capabilities. And it still doesn't prove the strikes accomplished anything, although it's easy to make that assumption.

      As for making his regime unstable, I somehow doubt he had too much of a moral problem ordering the executions of thousands of people, nor do I believe that such actions generate much goodwill towards us amongst the Iraqi populace.

    148. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by bareshiyth · · Score: 1
      Not choosing sides, here, but pointing out the major fallacy of the way YOU justify the side you've chosen, to wit, Clinton's Approach: zero NK nukes

      Bush's Approach, 4-10 nukes, 1 test

      First, just like we don't really even know if the so-called test WAS of a nuke, we also don't know if NK has any real weapons. It's all simply their word which, as we know, is mostly BS and BS.

      Second, the point those who suggest Clinton's approach was useless, or even worse, the real reason NK now has nukes is that they used the financial and technical aid they got from Clinton to help develop them, and the somkescreen/gullibility of the so-called agreement (like, the sound of one hand clapping) to carry on the program that lade the groundwork, developed the technology and nuclear weapons-grade materials and set up the next several years while Bush was in office and trusting that Clinton actually had been successful, in which the weapons were assembled.

      Third, If yo momma is cooking the turkey all day before you arrive home to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner, and after you are seated she brings it out to be served, is it your fault - or responsibility - that the turkey is there and now cooked and being served?

      Come on, don't let the political gamesmanship and partisanship obscure the facts: NK was building their nuke program during both Presidents' watches, and NK is really the villain here. Bush may be wrong. But Clinton obviously was wrong, and Bush is simply trying another approach. Now, as much as I have no confidence in the UN, and China and Russia, just maybe having them involved in the Bush approach (multiparty and UN involvement, and getting both their eyes involved in the watching for cheating and their reputations/political egos on the line if they are cheated on) will work.

    149. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      I looked into to see exactly what we were trying to do about it. Outside a few blocked sanction attempts in the UN, your right, it seems they don't have a plan outside the existing talks.

      However, I don't think this is exactly bad either. One of the problems with the korean war was that we didn't communicate with china about our intentions. That or we actualy had intentions of controling north korea. Anyways, China stomped our asses hard when we got too close to thier border. I think any action we do would need the support of china at minimum. More likley, it would have to be agreed on by china and probably be in some kind of benifit to them. I think this is one reason the 5 or 6 party talks is the strong point. But whatever course of action being taken, needs to involve china.

      I also think maybe letting a situation evolve that forces china to take a proactive stand could be the only realistic solution. Now with NK having nukes or the ability to have them, this will set a scenario were SK, japan, and some other areas might want them. A nuclear arms race is something China doesn't want, They would be right in the middle of the falout. Mad (mutualy assured destruction) is realy the best way to take nukes off the weapons table. Reagan had it right when he describe a defense of making sure we have a good offense in this area.

      It worked with the USSR and would probably be the same here. Except with NK being empoverished and possibly at thier last stand. Wich in case it might be a situation were a crazy man doesn't care and wants to take as many with him on the long ride down. Moreso though, I think the situation is more of NK wanting attention and desiring the status of respect Kim's father had. In this case, not dealing with him and forcing china to do something is an apropriate stand. Of course in this case, it would apear that bush is doing nothing but in reality he is doing alot of nothing.

      Either way, I think i'm agreeing with you more and more. Although i'm not sure i see it as negetive as you. I wish China would step up and either say do something, or do something themselves. I'm sure Russia would be happy to get involved too.

    150. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who modded-up the guy who can't spell 'per se'??

    151. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring Dumb @ss! by NoTheory · · Score: 1

      You are partially correct. The particular value of an organization's political stridency is only somewhat relevant (republicans are going to freak about some issues democrats wouldn't freak out at, and visa versa), the quesiton is what is the absolute value of their stridency. I don't trust WorldNewsDaily, and i don't trust People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The validity of the claim isn't determined by the source, but, the likelihood that a particular group is just spreading FUD is definitely effected by the group's history and agenda.

      --
      There are lives at stake here!
  3. doesn't matter by Hawkxor · · Score: 0, Troll

    Wouldn't surprise me too much if this were true; but in either case the audience of youtube is so predominately young and radically liberal, that even if there was more conservative-friendly material on that site it would all get rated out of existence pretty quickly, methinks.

    1. Re:doesn't matter by shrubsky · · Score: 2

      "Wouldn't surprise me too much if this were true; but in either case the audience of youtube is so predominately young and radically liberal, that even if there was more conservative-friendly material on that site it would all get rated out of existence pretty quickly, methinks."

      Hmm... :%s/youtube/slashdot/g

      I know, cheap shot, but it was too easy.

      --
      I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
    2. Re:doesn't matter by dick+pubes · · Score: 1
      Whenever I see conservative drivel on youtube, I do my part to make sure it's "rated out of existence." No apologies. :)

      I also fully support misusing slashdot's moderation system to marginalize conservative opinions. Once again, no apologies.

      :)

  4. Good or Bad? by N8F8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Bad, if you consider YouTube a news or public information site.

    Good, possibly, if they are pandering to their target audience to maximize viewership. You don't get equal time on the Daily Show either.

    And yeah, I'm one of those conservative folks who was annoyed by this; but hey, its a entertainment site.

    --
    "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
    1. Re:Good or Bad? by endemoniada · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Precisely. Had YouTube been some sort of public service channel, censoring something submitted by users would be rather bad taste. However, they're not, and they have every right to chose what kind of material they want to show or not show on their own site.

      This is no more censorship than any webforum anywhere on the Internet. Certain things are allowed, other things aren't.

      --
      Blog -
    2. Re:Good or Bad? by elrous0 · · Score: 1
      It's a private company and a private website. They can put whatever they damn well want on it.

      Funny that these conservatives never seem to object to the right-wing bias of the private talk radio industry (which even goes out over public radio spectrum).

      -Eric

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    3. Re:Good or Bad? by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 1

      No, I think youtube have it about right.

      If people mark a video as questionable it gets the cover sheet.
      You can still see the video if you confirm you are an adult.
      after youtube staff verify the video actions are taken (deletion or removal or the flag).

      Its not censorship or anything.
      its common sense.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    4. Re:Good or Bad? by dsci · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Funny that these conservatives never seem to object to the right-wing bias of the private talk radio industry (which even goes out over public radio spectrum).

      What bias of the INDUSTRY are you talking about? Let's not be disingenuous here. Liberals have all the opportunities conservatives do to field talk shows. I've heard them on the air, actually. Several of them.

      The problem you have to face is that talk radio, like any other radio format (except perhaps NPR, which shows quite a liberal leaning most of the time), is a BUSINESS. The talkers must gain an audience and keep it, so that the stations can sell advertising.

      A factual analysis of the liberal attempts at talk radio show that they just don't make money. It seems there is less of a market for liberals bashing of conservatives than most liberals would care to admit.

      One last point: those airwaves are not really public - the stations, via their broadcast license, "owns" a frequency in their market. It's misleading to act like this is analogous to "conservatives can stand on the public street corner and say what they want, but liberals cannot." As I opened my reply, liberal talk show hosts have the same opportunities in the business conservative ones do.

      --
      Computational Chemistry products and services.
    5. Re:Good or Bad? by @madeus · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I'm one of those conservative folks who was annoyed by this

      And apparently 'one of those conservative folks that don't bother to check out the story first' before crying foul.

    6. Re:Good or Bad? by operagost · · Score: 1

      I think the fact that Air America keeps bobbing under the waves like a bad swimmer supports the theory that talk radio simply isn't that interested in the leftist world view.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    7. Re:Good or Bad? by aonaran · · Score: 1

      One last point: those airwaves are not really public - the stations, via their broadcast license, "owns" a frequency in their market.

      Actually they LICENSE the frequency from the government who represent the public who OWN tne airwaves. That License can be revoked at any time if the licensee violates the terms of the license. Thankfully the terms have more to do with decency, technical aspects, and ability to pay the license fees than what people say about politics over the air.

      I'd like to see more talk shows of a non-conservative slant, but as long as they stick to the terms of their license I'm ok with them being there.

    8. Re:Good or Bad? by 246o1 · · Score: 1

      Before the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, businesses worked just fine while including multiple viewpoints. Furthermore, as a liberal, I am generally HAPPY to know that there is little market for liberal talk shows in the mold of Rush, Hannity, and all the other blowhards that make my local AM worthless. I would not be particularly thrilled to find a bunch of mindless drones as my comrades, which is what I would be forced to think if 'liberal talk radio' (which you claim exists) were anywhere near as stupid as conservative talk radio.

      And my final point, a factual issue, is that the radio waves are indeed PUBLIC, and that is why the FCC has power over them. Sure, the radio stations own licenses to use certain frequencies, but the airwaves are still a public good that, in theory, our government is handling in our best interests. The fact of the matter is, and I am speaking de facto and not de jure here, the telecoms own our congressmen, who give the telecoms a relatively free hand in consolidating media ownership to the detriment of the people the congress supposedly represents.

      --
      Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
    9. Re:Good or Bad? by oddfox · · Score: 1

      If you would have read the article you wouldn't have anything to be upset over other than the fact that there are people on YouTube who think it's tripe. I'm not even going to get into that though because quite frankly a flame war is the last thing I want to get involved in.

      --
      "We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
    10. Re:Good or Bad? by general_re · · Score: 1
      I think the fact that Air America keeps bobbing under the waves like a bad swimmer supports the theory that talk radio simply isn't that interested in the leftist world view.
      The bobbing appears to be coming to an end - Air America filed for bankruptcy this morning:

      http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/061013/air_america_radio_b ankruptcy.html?.v=3
      --
      ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
    11. Re:Good or Bad? by Millenniumman · · Score: 1

      They can do what they want, but users can also complain if they want.

      Conservatives don't complain about talk radio because those shows are billed as being conservative. As are many liberal radio shows. Conservatives don't complain about Al Franken being biased.

      Youtube is supposed to be a video hosting site, not a liberal advocacy site. Most major media outlets are supposed to be nonpartisan.

      Regardless, due to the nature of this, YouTube is not at fault. It was just a few jerks.

      --
      Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
    12. Re:Good or Bad? by ben+there... · · Score: 1
      If you would have read the article you wouldn't have anything to be upset over other than the fact that there are people on YouTube who think it's tripe.

      Apparently, the majority of people who did read the article are still upset.
    13. Re:Good or Bad? by phantomlord · · Score: 1

      I don't listen to Hannity but I do listen to Rush... I've also tried to listen to some Air America because I wanted to see what the other side has to say. Granted, I have a conservative bias but this is what the difference I see between them is:

      Rush is funny. There is a lot of political commentary on the show but it's interwoven with parodies, talk about football, one way jokes with his staff (mostly teasing them that he knows more than them), etc. Just the other day, he spent 10 minutes talking about his new car and the ipod system on the dashboard. Hardly something political. He's also a rather positive guy who will make fun of someone rather than lash out at them in a harsh way. "Der Schlickmeister", "Sandy Burglar", "Madeline Halfbright", etc will make people on the right and in the middle chuckle to themselves while not turning them off by being too extreme. It actually takes a couple weeks to get into the full swing of the show and start getting all the little inside jokes and gags.

      I haven't been able to stomach a full dose of Air America for too long. All I hear is incessant ranting that is absolutely full of spite. There is a sheer arrogance that their view is the one and only view and anyone who disagrees is some type of Satan. Er, wait, Satan would imply a god... some type of McCarthy. Basically, the entire network feels like pure red meat for the far left and there isn't much to attract the rest of the spectrum of listeners.

      When Michael Savage first hit my market, I did my best to listen when he was on. It astounded me that someone actually had the balls to say some of the things those of us on the right were thinking but didn't have the balls to say in public. Over time, he got even more rabid (and self contradictory) though and now he's gone so far off the deep end that I don't listen to him at all.

      As others have pointed out, radio is all about capturing as large of an audience as possible and keeping them for as long as you can so you can get the most money for your advertising. In fact, once or twice a month, Rush reminds his audience of exactly that and that's why he lightens things up instead of railing hardcore politics all the time. Air America is your Michael Savage, you have no Rush Limbaugh equivalent that I know of.

      Also, as a side note... I wish the people who run around criticizing guys like Rush would make an effort to actually listen to him a couple times instead of just repeating what others have told them. I'm not saying the poster I'm replying to didn't listen to him and truly found him distasteful but too many people are too quick to judge without examining the facts for themselves. Of course, maybe I'm wrong and even moderate democrats who have listened to Rush find him as extreme as I find most of Air America.

      --
      Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
    14. Re:Good or Bad? by Americano · · Score: 1

      The guy you're responding to hit the nail on the head, though -- it's not as if the liberal talk show hosts haven't had their opportunities, it's that they have a huge difficulty maintaining an audience that can sustain the talk format as a viable business model.

      If you want to see the real reason why, look to the supporters: by and large, conservatives tend to be "mostly" in agreement on a lot of issues, which means someone speaking with a conservative bent will be at least a little more likely to attract a large conservative audience. On the other hand, liberals are often a very fractious and divisive lot... which makes it a lot harder to gather, and keep, an audience of appreciable size for someone who talks about liberal stuff -- you know, pink frilly panties and garden parties with the illegal Mexican immigrants. (For those of you who are humor-impaired, yes, that WAS a joke. Don't get your pink french-cut panties in a bunch. :)

      What it boils down to is, audience drives advertising rates drives talk radio success. Some liberals have found reasonable degrees of success in talk radio, at least to the extent that they are nationally syndicated: Ed Schultz, Alan Colmes, Thom Hartmann, Bill Press, and Stephanie Miller, for example. Other liberal talk hosts have NOT found reasonable degrees of success -- Al Franken & the rest of his colleagues at Air America, for example.

    15. Re:Good or Bad? by oddfox · · Score: 1

      Haha, I love WND polls.

      --
      "We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
    16. Re:Good or Bad? by Americano · · Score: 1

      As someone who splits his radio-listening time mostly between the local FM Talk station here in the Boston area, and Howard Stern on my Sirius receiver, I have to agree with most of what you've written here.

      The best radio, in general, is the type that makes you "feel at home" -- it's why I listen to Howard Stern, it's why I listen to the John & Jeff show (syndicated out of L.A., I think?) when I'm working late, and it's the reason I listen to Jay Severin on the aforementioned Boston talk station. Listening makes you feel kind of like you're sitting around with a few of your friends, just talking and having a good time, and that's exactly the type of feeling that a radio program needs to engender if it wants to keep people listening, and it sounds like exactly what you're talking about when you mention the inside jokes, and how it takes a few weeks to really "get to know" the program.

      What I don't understand is how anybody could think that somebody with a radio program -- liberal or conservative -- is somehow a threat to their own values and principles. I don't agree with all of the viewpoints and thoughts of the people I hear on the radio. But then, I could say the same thing about every single one of my friends, too -- we don't agree on everything, but when we get together, the talk is lively, fun, and good-natured, even in disagreement.

    17. Re:Good or Bad? by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 1
      Funny that these conservatives never seem to object to the right-wing bias of the private talk radio industry (which even goes out over public radio spectrum).

      It is, of course, no more funny than the fact that whenever a similar story is posted to slashdot about a "liberal" person/story being "censored" by a private company, there are immediately dozens of long diatribes posted about how doing so is unconstitutional and evil modded up to +5, while I only see only one -- relatively mild -- example of that in the entire first page of posts to this story.

      I might take the people (on both sides) more seriously if they weren't all hypocrites.
      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    18. Re:Good or Bad? by DavidTC · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The probably people have with Rush isn't his political stance, it's that he has no trouble lying, and other people repeat these lies.

      Seriously, I've listened to him a few times, and, when he talked about stuff I knew about, he was either objectively lying, or at a minimum misrepresenting things. When I say 'misrepresenting' I mean, not in a subjective 'agree to disagree' way, doing shit like comparing 'How many X' there are in two different sized populations, and 'forgetting' to mention that one population was three times the size of another. I'm sorry, but that's lying.

      There are at least three ways of being biased: You can selectively report the triumphs of your side and the failures of the other side, you can misrepresent the truth by clever wording and manipulation of facts, and you can lie about actual facts.

      All political commentary does the first one. More and more, I see the second done, sometimes by the liberal side, more often by the conservative, but it's possible I'm biased. Either way, I tend to stop listening to such people when I realize they'll say anything that's 'technically' true, no matter how much it misleads people.

      But people like Rush, who actually make up facts? Like his recent assertation that the Foley emails were 'planted by a liberal' and that you need abortions to get embryonic stem cells and that Clinton was down to a 20 approval rating at one point and other such inanities. That's way past 'biased' and into 'lying'. Those aren't even vaguely, under any defination, true.

      Thinking Rush is 'biased' is part of the problem. He's not presenting an unfair view of reality. He's not presenting reality at all, he's just lying. Not only that, it's been repeatedly documented. Al Franken got a whole book out of it.

      Also he says horribly offensive with regard to race and gender, but that's not 'biased' per se, and if people actually like to listen to that, I have no problem with it. WRT the lies, however, I wish someone would sue him for slander.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    19. Re:Good or Bad? by MorePower · · Score: 1

      Are you kidding? It was the Rush types that initially drove me away from the conservative side. Rush and pals contantly shout down any disagreements (even from there own co-hosts!) insult their oposition and call them names. I can't stand that sort of thing, even when I agree with the view-point.

      Basically I think its better to be wrong than be an asshole.

      Here's an example of a reasonable conservative statement:
      "While I understand that liberals believe it is important to take care of the unfortunate, overall I believe this encourages lazy, unscupulous people to take advantage of society."

      Now this is how Rush et al would say the same thing (not an actual quote):
      "Those STUPID Lie-beral Demon-crats want to STEAL my tax dollars to give it to some welfare queen with twenty kids so she can buy crack?!? Only a complete MORON would think that's a good idea! But then, I already said they were Democrats..."

      The former is a debatable point, the latter just makes me want to punch the speaker in the face. I once found a liberal show that was bashing Republicans in a similar maner. I turned it off just as quickly.

    20. Re:Good or Bad? by Banner · · Score: 1
      Before the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, businesses worked just fine while including multiple viewpoints.


      What? You have got to be kidding me! There were no 'conservative' shows on national radio anywhere during the reign of the Fairness Doctrine. Nor were there on TV. Even the few local shows that existed were pretty reigned in. Notice that right after it was repealed Conservative talk radio showes were finally allowed and how quickly they florished.

      All the 'Fairness doctrine' ever did was censor speech that many people wanted to hear.
    21. Re:Good or Bad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "A factual analysis of the liberal attempts at talk radio show that they just don't make money. It seems there is less of a market for liberals bashing of conservatives than most liberals would care to admit."

      WalMart isn't going to give money to a radio station airing Ralph Nader because his actions cost them money.
      Corporations are rightist (conservative and liberal are both bullshit terms) institutions who buy advertising. That's who the market is. Not the public.
      Their views don't get out hardly at all.

    22. Re:Good or Bad? by Xonstantine · · Score: 0

      Are you kidding? It was the Rush types that initially drove me away from the conservative side. Rush and pals contantly shout down any disagreements (even from there own co-hosts!) insult their oposition and call them names. I can't stand that sort of thing, even when I agree with the view-point.

      Well, you just definitely proved that you don't listen to Rush. He doesn't have co-hosts, doesn't call people names (I'm assuming you meant callers), and the times I've heard him have a reasonable person from the opposite side of the spectrum, he's been very respectful and allowed them to state their position.

      Now this is how Rush et al would say the same thing (not an actual quote):
      Those STUPID Lie-beral Demon-crats want to STEAL my tax dollars to give it to some welfare queen with twenty kids so she can buy crack?!? Only a complete MORON would think that's a good idea! But then, I already said they were Democrats..."


      Again, it's pretty clear you are pantomiming the liberal perception that's percolated down the grapevine, but never actually listened to the show itself. Yes, conservative talk radio attacks Democratic positions. Guess what, it's called political discourse. Democrats attack conservative positions too. They have their institutions also (the "mainstream" media, academia, 99% of Hollywood).

      And if that was all it took to "drive you away from the conservative side", frankly, the conservative side doesn't need "really strong" idealogues like you. I don't think I've ever seen an argument like yours that could be considered half way intelligent. It's like saying you used to be heterosexual, but you hated the way men chased women at bars, so you turned gay in response. Either something matches your value set or it doesn't.

    23. Re:Good or Bad? by pugugly · · Score: 1

      Actually, I'm rather amazed that more liberals don't get that the problem is the liberal mindset. I'm going to indulge in some self-serving political definition for a moment, but the nature of the "Liberal" is that they think we can do better, and they look to the future on how to do it (I'm distinguishing this from Radical - a Radical knows we can do better, and knows exactly how to change things to do it. Whether he's right or not is irrelevant, only that he's *certain*.) Contrawise a moderate is holding on to the present, a conservative looks to the past, and a reactionary looks to the past with certainty.

      But what is commonly called conservative media is really reactionary media - media that is certain they are right. Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter don't *suspect* I'm an unpatriotic scummy Al-qaeda sympathizer that would risk a few bombs just to be *nice* to islamo-fascist's - they've flat out said so. That I'm a veteran that lost friends in the Pentagon has nothing to do with it.

      Now, Radicals would be happy with the opposing media perspective - one that says greenpeace is right, conservatives are cowards etcetera and so on, but Liberals have never merged into radicalism the way conservatives have reactionaries. (Probably frankly, not because Liberals are any brighter perse, than simply because it's more dangerous for someone running to decide to close their eyes while running somewhere they haven't seen than for someone walking to close their eyes and walk backwards to someplace they've been. Hit a few walls running with your eyes shut, and you might decide maybe you don't know as much as you thought. Reactionaries are dumb, but at least they're generally someplace they've been. Radicals are *really* dumb.)

      But Liberals are looking for something better, don't know exactly where to go to get it, and have no hesitation about grabbing every bit of info they can to find it. Consider that NPR is considered Liberal, but has 2/3rds conservative viewpoints presented. If you're basing Liberal/Conservative on jotting up point tallies, NPR and PBS are actually pretty conservative. (Unless of course, you just think Liberals are just much more manly and studly than Conservatives, and easily counterbalance two apiece. I'm not averse to that interpretation. )

      On the other hand, if you consider that NPR is heavily biased towards maintaining objectivity, logical analysis, and pulling together all the information on a subject, even if that information disagrees with the biases of it's audience, then the Liberal tag makes more sense. Liberals depend on on their news media to act as lighthouses, warning us where we may crash on the rocks. Because, y'know, the rocks don't care where we were going - just where we are.

      Then the concept of NPR being Liberal make sense. Countering viewpoints *are* a liberal value. Used to be a conservative value too, till they let themselves get sucked into the orbits of the reactionaries. But there's no real liberal market for conservative bashing because, as annoying as it is to be bashed by O'Reilly, we don't care that much about him - he's an idiot that is out of touch with reality. We don't *want* to become like that. We *do* care about the conservative echo chamber that is drowning us out, because occasionally we're right about where we're going to hit rocks too, and we've hit a whole lot lately that, frankly, we warned people about.

      Pug

      --
      An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
    24. Re:Good or Bad? by pugugly · · Score: 1

      What you're saying is - Conservative shows can't survive if they are forced to allow people that disagree equal time to critique them, but Liberals can survive that way?

      However, as soon as Conservatives were given an environment where they could speak without fear of being held accountable, they could flourish?

      Hmmm. Interesting indictment of the liberal media -[coff coff]

      Pug

      --
      An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
    25. Re:Good or Bad? by sethstorm · · Score: 1

      And if that was all it took to "drive you away from the conservative side", frankly, the conservative side doesn't need "really strong" idealogues like you
      As if you dont have conservative ideologues such as O'Reilly and Hannity?

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    26. Re:Good or Bad? by Xonstantine · · Score: 0

      Hate to quibble, but O'Reilly isn't really conservative. He's probably as disliked by the right just as much as he is by the left. Personally, I think he's a gun grabbing statist blowhard.

      Hannity is an idealogue, but I don't consider that a bad thing per se. I should've put quotes around my use in the parent post. My point was, and still is, if bad behavior by supposed conservatives is sufficient to change your point of view regarding the world (and, to a great degree, that's one of the big seperating factors between the left in the right: they disagree not only on what the problems are, but also on what the solutions should be), then your conservative identity wasn't really that strong to begin with.

    27. Re:Good or Bad? by 246o1 · · Score: 1

      As pointed out already, Rush misrepresents things. I used to listen to him five days a week, because I had a mindless manual labor job and needed some stimulation beyond hearing the same songs 4 times a day for weeks on the pop stations. Also, I was interested in learning about what was a huge cultural phenomenon.

      You assume that we, who criticize him, don't listen to Rush, but I certainly did, as have many of my more liberal friends. If you look up the facts about an issue and are informed, his bullying, name-calling style comes off as immature and grating. I eventually reached the point that his show made me angry more than it amused or entertained me, and I quit listening.

      I will admit to not listening to much Hannity, and every time I hear Michael Savage I cringe. It's like if all my most racist and homophobic neighbors got drunk and had a talk show. But don't try to say I haven't ever listened to Rush. I just realize what bullshit he's spouting and got sick of it.

      --
      Although the moon is smaller than the earth, it is farther away.
    28. Re:Good or Bad? by Banner · · Score: 1

      No. What I'm saying is that Conservative shows aren't allowed on the air under the 'Fairness' Doctrine. The 'Fairness Doctrine' was never about being fair, it was about censorship. There are still more leftwing shows on the radio than right wing (NPR), and the leftwing ones are financed with public money and given government support.

      And I'm not even getting into Television where 99 percent of everything is left wing. All during the time of the 'Fairness doctrine' the right NEVER got a chance to speak, and now you want to come along and offer 'equal time' to people who already control the majority of the media?

      Will you put Rush on TV for 3 hours a day to counter 'Good Morning America', Katie Couric on the CBS News, etc? No, of course you won't.

      As for the 'conservative media being held accountable' I see them held accountable all the time, it's the left wing media that gets a free ride. Just look at Air America and all the money they stole, now they're in Chapt 11, yet Soro's is funneling money through a front operation to save them. Where's your left wing accountability?

  5. ah, yes...conservatives... by drakaan · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    ...It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

    Right. Point out that there's a grain-of-salt aspect to it since the reporting organization is right-wing. I wonder if a similar comment would have survived to the slashdot front page if moveon.org complained that YouTube was blocking access to a video that criticized Bush's policy on Saudi Arabia (and was bereft of nudity, violence, etc)...

    It *must* be election season. Between slashdot and digg I can hardly browse without stepping in politics.

    --
    "Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
    1. Re:ah, yes...conservatives... by rob1980 · · Score: 1

      I wonder if a similar comment would have survived to the slashdot front page if moveon.org complained that YouTube was blocking access to a video that criticized Bush's policy on Saudi Arabia (and was bereft of nudity, violence, etc)...

      Of course it would, and it would have resulted in a barrage of "OMG 1984" comments in the discussion.

    2. Re:ah, yes...conservatives... by truthsearch · · Score: 1

      One should always consider the source when reading articles. I don't think it's unreasonable that the summary points out the possible conservative bias of the source since most people here have probably never heard of this source.

      Here on /. you can filter most of the political articles. Turn off the politics and YRO sections. Your problem is solved.

    3. Re:ah, yes...conservatives... by RingDev · · Score: 1

      It's called biased reporting, and by knowing the political alignment of the reporting organization you can make a better determination of what the truth is.

      In this case, YouTube isn't censoring anyone. YouTube USERS flagged the video as inappropriate and YouTube administrators CLEARED that flag. So YouTube is fighting AGAINST censorship. But it draws a much larger crowd with sensational headlines like "YouTube Censors".

      -Rick

      --
      "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    4. Re:ah, yes...conservatives... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > hardly browse without stepping in politics.

      Me too ! I've been looking at Japanese pr0n and now I have a massive election

    5. Re:ah, yes...conservatives... by drakaan · · Score: 1

      ...oh, I'm not saying it's a problem per-se (the quantity of political articles), just commenting on the situation...kind of like talking about the weather, I guess.

      --
      "Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
  6. Subjective "Reporting" by eldavojohn · · Score: 2, Insightful
    So, unless someone toes a liberal party line their opinion has no value?
    The problem is that this article seems to be primarily opinion oriented. Meaning it doesn't have a lot of news content.

    Frankly, after reading this, I must say that this is more an opinionated editorial than an objective piece of news. I'm shocked that /. would select this report of YouTube censorship instead of another article from a more reputable news source
    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by tbannist · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That may just be the most reputable news source reporting on the incident. I just checked google news, there's only 7 articles on this, all from far right web sites.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    2. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by dsci · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The problem is that this article seems to be primarily opinion oriented. Meaning it doesn't have a lot of news content.

      I'm shocked that /. would select this report of YouTube censorship instead of another article from a more reputable news source

      Again, to reiterate the GP's post, WND is not a reputable news source because it's conservative?

      You can call this an opinion piece if you'd like, but stating FACTS like the video was available for viewing on YouTube is reporting, not editorial. From the FTA:

      limited access to a political ad that mocks the Clinton administration's policy on North Korea, but contains no profanity, nudity or other factors generally thought objectionable. What in that statement is OPINION?

      Further into the article, we get:

      "However, after a brief period of accessibility, the verification page started appearing on YouTube. It asked that: "This video may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community. To view this video, please verify you are 18 or older by logging in or signing up." Today the verification page on the spoof was removed."

      I have to say, that seems like some decent FACTUAL reporting.

      (1) They state that the verification page was present due to USERS ratings.
      (2) The point out that the verification page has been removed.

      Your choice of insult for WND is unwarranted.

      --
      Computational Chemistry products and services.
    3. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by Ill_Omen · · Score: 1

      I have to say, that seems like some decent FACTUAL reporting.

      (1) They state that the verification page was present due to USERS ratings.
      (2) The point out that the verification page has been removed.

      And from this, they conclude that they were being intentionally censored by YouTube. So either they're incredibly stupid, or they're intentionally ignoring these same facts in order to write a propoganda piece.

      When studies are published ("Windows has Lower Cost of Ownership than Linux", for example), people instantly look at where the money to fund the study came from, in order to ascertain bias. Why shouldn't we do the same for our news?

    4. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by enrevanche · · Score: 5, Informative
      subjective, let's see a quote from a blogger
      "Perfectly OK to show our soldiers getting killed, but they'll be damned if they allow that anti-democrat ad," added "Spaceman Spiff" in a "Newsbusters online dialogue. "This [is] very scary to me. However, not surprising. But, now that they are owned by Google, we'll certainly be seeing a lot more of this censoring."

      let's see this quote from the article
      Sheffield said he believes the intention of YouTube's "censorship squad" was to limit access. Even though the same video may be available somewhere else, such as the Drudge Report, "lots of non-political and moderate folks don't read Drudge, but they might hear about the video from a friend and try to look it up in the search engine, only to be foiled in their attempts to decide whether it was truly 'objectionable.'"

      and another gem of reporting
      Bloggers also reported that the Council on American Islamic Relations has in the past taken steps to have anti-radical Islamist videos pulled from the YouTube site, and Malkin said she was told her video was pulled because it was "inappropriate."

      This article is an opinion piece, it looks nothing like a factual article. It uses quotes form unknown bloggers as evidence. It presents only one side of the story. It does not try for even a second to be objective. For a factual article, it does not know when the movie was posted, how long it was freely availble, how long it was restricted and when it came unrestricted again. It makes a big deal out of nothing because youtubes policy is to investigate after someone marks a video as objectionable. These idiots would be all over youtube if they ran a different policy because children could be potentially exposed to nudity.

      This article is about a censorship that is not even a censorship but the normal processes at google. This article simply attempts to resell the story to the American public that the media has liberal bias.

    5. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      Here's another far right source you might have missed:

      http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/technology/09lin k.html

      Oh, wait, it's the New York Times. My bad.

    6. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by deanj · · Score: 1

      "a more reputable news source"

      Ah...so we're deciding what a "reputable" news source is, eh?

      This is *exactly* what people are complaining about. Free Speech is ALL speech, not just those you agree with.

    7. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bias isn't always HOW a story is reported. In fact, this is the lesser evil of the two. Bias is often in what's NOT reported.

      If you are told something is happening, at least you're alerted to it and you can try to dig up more info yourself. If you're never told, you'll never know.

    8. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by tbannist · · Score: 1

      Oh wait, it's a different incident. Maybe you should try reading before you write.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    9. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Yes we are, you stupid shit.

      All speech is, indeed, speech.

      Incorrect speech, however, isn't news at all. It can be fiction, or a lie, or all sorts of things, but it isn't news.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    10. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      No, it's all part of youtube taking down conservative videos, which the linked article (from the post) talks about. They are removing conservative videos while leaving up jihadist propaganda. Period. Obviously they haven't removed this particular video, and probably won't now (roaches tend to dislike the light), but they have in the past.

    11. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I'm shocked that /. would select this report of YouTube censorship instead of another article from a more reputable news source
      Funny, I'd be more shocked if they didn't. :)
    12. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by tbannist · · Score: 1

      Those are two seperate incidents with two separate videos, moron. When you critize someone try to be right once in a while.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    13. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by deanj · · Score: 1

      Ah, name calling. The fallback of the left, when they're backed up against the wall. It really degrades from your supposed argument.

      Sorry, but I'm not impressed with your arguments. Just because YOU don't agree with it, doesn't make it a lie. It might be a lie in your little world, but you can't deny facts, no matter how hard you try.

      Again, you might not like the source, but it is a legimate new outlet. It just sounds like it doesn't conform with your little view of the world.

      And, what's your answer? "It's a lie! Let's stop them!"

      Censorship is a very ugly thing. Thanks for proving that point.

    14. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      You know, it's always funny when the left is accused of 'cultural relativism' and not knowing 'right from wrong'.

      Apparently, you don't know the difference between 'true and false' or 'facts and opinions'. Even the most 'cultural relativism' grasps those things.

      Here's a hint: The reason why the video got a 'You must be over 18' page is a fact. Someone clicked on the 'Report the video' link, and it was marked until YouTube could get to it. Any other reasons for the video being blocked are, wait for it, incorrect.

      There are plenty of opinions involved in the story, but that is not one of them.

      By misreporting that fact, the article is objectively wrong. That, in and of itself, does not make it not news, all news sources are sometimes incorrect. But the fact they got something wrong that it would be trivial to check and, frankly, anyone who knows how YouTube works could explain, makes them a very very bad source for 'news', because it appears they printed a wild rumor just to get their viewers riled up.

      By going with other sources that actually check their facts instead of just leaping to conclusions, we might actually have news instead of opinion and wild nonfactual claims.

      Of course, slashdot isn't that good at finding actual news, and often prints links to crappy sources, so it's not a surprise or anything. And we always have fools who think the fact they want the article to be correct is a good reason to argue that it is correct, and even if it's not, it's correct in some metaphorical sense or other examples of the same thing are correct or anything to avoid having to say 'Yeah, this isn't true, and it shouldn't be here'.

      It just normally doesn't happen with regard to politics.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    15. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by deanj · · Score: 1

      I think my point is well outlined in this article, "A Slippery Slope of Censorship at YouTube"

      http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/technology/09lin k.html?ex=1161230400&en=46200e58715eb0ad&ei=5070

      People didn't like the facts presented, and their answer was the censor it. Fortunately, YouTube restored it.

      So, bottom line, you're wrong.

    16. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      I am wrong in what sense, exactly? What is the exact thing I am wrong about?

      I pointed out that, due the obvious factual inaccuracies in the article linked, that the news source linked was not a very good one, because it was apparently operating solely to stir people up with no regard to the facts at all. That's all I asserted.

      I have no idea if YouTube is censoring anything. If it is, a factual article claiming that, such as the one you provided, might have provided an interesting discussion. Although your article is amazing short on the ability to find out what anyone's talking about, perfering instead to randomly print claims of 'victims', at least it's not apparently lying.

      OTOH, at least one part of the article you linked to is complete gibberish, namely, the claim by a 'Professor Rutenbeck' that Usenet communities started dying because people started censoring things, which doesn't make any sense, because Usenet doesn't work that way. Newsgroups either start off moderated, or unmoderated, and they can't change, and very few of them are moderated in the first place. And as the moderation is done by one person, it's hard to see why that person would suddenly start bowing to pressure.

      Discussion Usenet died because of spammers and web forums, not because of 'over-sensitivity'. I know, I've watched the decline and fall of Usenet, and I have never once heard the suggestion it fell because people cared too much about what others thought, although I have heard the exact opposite suggested, that the inherit ability to disguise yourself and even post as other people presented Usenet a disadvantage over web boards. On web boards, you have an 'identity', even if it's not linked with your RL identity, on Usenet, it's just whatever you typed in your Usenet client.

      That's not to say Usenet won't treat people harsely if someone comes in with a stupid idea, sometimes even too harshly, and that hurts some communities...but that's not being too sensitive. It is, in fact, the opposite.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    17. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by deanj · · Score: 1


      This whole discussion started because you said:

      "I'm shocked that /. would select this report of YouTube censorship instead of another article from a more reputable news source"

      I replied:

      "Ah...so we're deciding what a "reputable" news source is, eh?"

      And now you've just said:

      "I have no idea if YouTube is censoring anything. If it is, a factual article claiming that, such as the one you provided, might have provided an interesting discussion."

      You've just proved you didn't even bother to read the article, yet slammed it because of the source. Further proving my original point.

      In follow on articles, NYTimes confirms what the original article was saying: The video was censored by people that didn't like what was being said, which was my point earlier saying: "This is *exactly* what people are complaining about. Free Speech is ALL speech, not just those you agree with."

      Some people only want to hear speech that they agree with, and want to squash those that don't agree with them. That's not what "Free Speech" is. But that's exactly what people tried to do on YouTube.

      Fortunately, it was corrected.

    18. Re:Subjective "Reporting" by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      This whole discussion started because you said:
      "I'm shocked that /. would select this report of YouTube censorship instead of another article from a more reputable news source"

      No I didn't.

      You've just proved you didn't even bother to read the article, yet slammed it because of the source.

      No I didn't. I read the article. It had issues with factual accuracy, and hence I ignored it and its source.

      In follow on articles, NYTimes confirms what the original article was saying: The video was censored by people that didn't like what was being said, which was my point earlier saying: "This is *exactly* what people are complaining about. Free Speech is ALL speech, not just those you agree with."

      And if the article here had been about random people flagging things on YouTube, I would have agreed. However, please direct your attention to the title of this page, and to the title of the linked story, which is 'YouTube blocked video mocking Clinton administration'.

      And there were no links to 'followon articles', at least not from actual news sources. There was a quote from the NYTs, but I don't take random quotes that could be from anywhere in any context, like the editorial page, or even just made up.

      Rereading the article, it's even more crappy than I remember. They quote their own discussion forums. That's not news. It's not a good news source. It's about three paragraphs of actual story, and ten pagagraphs of random quotes and unsourced accusations.

      I know, in your universe, a news source is exactly as good as it is pro-Republican, but in my universe, I would have much prefered a link to, say, the NY Times story, and it is perfectly valid to complain about that. WND are free to post whatever they want, but Slashdot is supposed to be posting links to news, not random gibberish.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  7. Uhm. Yeah. by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 1

    I seem to remember a certain video game simulation of the Clinton era whitehouse being featured on YouTube. I think it ended with "You lose. It's your wife!"

  8. Wrong. by N8F8 · · Score: 0

    In an interview the YouTube dude said nothing gets the warning flag clickthrough without being reviewed by a YUouTube employee first.

    --
    "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
    1. Re:Wrong. by tbannist · · Score: 1

      You fail. He said "nothing is removed" without being reviewed first.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
  9. bogus by Stalyn · · Score: 5, Informative

    The video is up and no longer flagged. A video becomes flagged when enough users mark it and then a YouTube employee will either verify it should be removed/flagged. In this case they removed the initial flag and kept the video.

    --
    The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
    1. Re:bogus by RevMike · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The video is up and no longer flagged. A video becomes flagged when enough users mark it and then a YouTube employee will either verify it should be removed/flagged. In this case they removed the initial flag and kept the video.

      If that is the case, then no problem. According to the article the a video is flagged only when a YouTube employee reviews the video - at the request of the community - and decides that it should be flagged. Do you have any references that say the article got it wrong?

      Assuming for the moment that YouTube did flag it, rather than the community, the question then comes down to whether this was within policy or whether some YouTube employee acted on his own.

      In the end, there are too many unknowns that need to be clarified before anyone condems YouTube.

    2. Re:bogus by Stalyn · · Score: 5, Informative

      YouTube users can flag any video as containing pornography, mature content or graphic violence, depicting illegal acts or being racially or ethnically offensive. A video is removed -- as Ms. Malkin's was on Sept. 28 -- only if a review by the company's customer support department agrees that it is inappropriate, or that the video is on its face in violation of the site's terms of use.

      NYTimes - "A Slippery Slope of Censorship at YouTube"

      --
      The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
    3. Re:bogus by geoffspear · · Score: 1

      Actually, according to the article no content is removed without being reviewed, it's given a warning.

      Also, according to the article, the flagging was removed before the article was actually posted on the website. That is, the author and editors knew that YouTube wasn't censoring the content and wrote an article about how they were censoring the content anyway. If that's doesn't show dishonesty and a complete lack of journalistic integrity, I don't know what does.

      It's be like if a liberal news site posted an article with the headline "President Bush Kidnaps and Rapes Children", with 10 paragraphs about how the President raped children, then the last paragraph stated that actually he didn't rape children, but they wouldn't be surprised if he did some day, because after all he's a conservative.

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    4. Re:bogus by Phormion · · Score: 1
      According to the article the a video is flagged only when a YouTube employee reviews the video - at the request of the community - and decides that it should be flagged. Do you have any references that say the article got it wrong?

      Ah, come on people, stop being ridiculous. How much are you using YouTube? There's a ridiculous amount of harmless videos flagged as 'inappropriate', and teenagerish black metal videos with nudity which aren't. I'm guessing the review by the YouTube employee is a mere formality, if it's not actually 'automated'. For fsck's sake, they have 60 employees, and millions of videos and users, they can't keep up with that.

      It seems somebody is trying to play paranoid here, but comes out ridiculous. It's not a problem of the political orientation of the reporting site, it's just that their article is completely baseless, because of the inefficient flagging system on YouTube.

    5. Re:bogus by operagost · · Score: 1

      No, it would be as if someone reported, "Bank of America Loses Records of Millions of Customers," because that's what happened. The Bank of America headquarters building wouldn't have to literally lift itself off the ground and sail down the city streets on a pirate expedition, tossing all its customer records out the window, to make this headline accurate. YouTube has a mechanism in place whereby users can mark a file as "objectionable". Because of a possible flaw in this system, a file was allowed to be marked inappropriately for a nonzero length of time. It is reasonable to assume that YouTube is responsible for their own code.

      --

      Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
    6. Re:bogus by SydShamino · · Score: 3, Insightful

      YouTube has a mechanism in place whereby users can mark a file as "objectionable". Because of a possible flaw in this system, a file was allowed to be marked inappropriately for a nonzero length of time. It is reasonable to assume that YouTube is responsible for their own code.

      And plenty of posts in this thread have been moderated inappropriately, with "overrated" and "flamebait" and "offtopic" tags used on this that are merely alternate viewpoints.

      I don't blame /. for this, despite the fact that they are responsible for their own code. Allowing public input in moderation always introduces the possibility of intentional manipulation. If there was a story here at all, it would be a piece on the overall phenomenon, with reference to Slashdot, Wikipedia, and of course YouTube. It would also have views of people on the other side, where the benefits of such a system can be explained as well.

      --
      It doesn't hurt to be nice.
  10. So what? by endemoniada · · Score: 3, Informative

    Youtube is a "private" site. It can, and obviously will, censor whatever the hell it will.

    There is no constitution on the Internet. There is no free speech. There is only the right to say whatever the hell you want, and hope someone will listen to you. If they don't, too bad.

    That said, I don't approve of censoring anything. I think it's cowardly and serves no real purpose other than to shield people from things they may not necessarily want to be shielded from. But it IS the right of youtube to chose what they want to have on their site, and what the don't want. Obviously, they don't want people being overly political. That's their call.

    Deal with it.

    --
    Blog -
    1. Re:So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually YouTube has no problem with people being overly political, but only in the ways they agree with.

      But you are right, they do have the right to censor whatever they want. Just some people prefer that they'd be honest about it, and that others wouldn't try to claim that youtube is unbiased.

      Heck, look at the highly biased commentary of the /. editor in the lead in to this post. It doesn't matter to him that the story was factual at all, he had to attack it because of where it came from.

      =Anon cause I'm already gonna call flame modded to hell for speaking the truth on this one in my other comments.

    2. Re:So what? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      That said, I don't approve of censoring anything. So, you don't mind if I spout of claims that you fuck sheep to whoever will listen with no evidence?

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    3. Re:So what? by endemoniada · · Score: 1

      No, actually I don't.

      All you're doing is make yourself look bad, and by resorting to verbal assault you're just further proving my point :)

      --
      Blog -
    4. Re:So what? by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      Well, that's a bad example since it's so ridiculous. But, I don't believe in absolute free speech because of the open door for abuse. What if in a political campaign someone starts spouting bold-faced lies? Even in today's politics it's hard enough to hold people to account for misleading or even false statements (like the Swiftboat vets). You need a strong legal way to respond rather than just hoping people just figure it out (as did NOT happen with the Swiftboat vets). Of course, there's the proverbial cry of fire in a crowded theater.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  11. Slashdot accused of censorship? by Ligur · · Score: 1

    Since slashdot utilizes the same method of user-censorship of comments, does this mean slashdot is accusing itself of censorship by having this article on the frontpage?

    --
    Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
    1. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Ligur · · Score: 1

      Damn, I wish you could delete your own comments...
      That should be WorldNetDaily accusing slashdot of censorship. Which isn't nearly as amusing.

      --
      Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
    2. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Slashdot's moderation system is a form of censorship. Opinions that don't follow the anti-Microsoft, anti-American party line are regularly censored. People on Slashdot will complain about free speech zones and then mod down posts that they simply don't agree with. Happens all the time.

    3. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      I could be wrong here, but last time I checked Slashdot wasn't a government.

      If Slashdot has become a government rather than a privately-owned web site since the last time I looked, please correct me here.

    4. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Nasarius · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hilarious that you got modded up for this. I fully expect it to get to +5. Did you see, for example, the recent global warming post? Something like 80% of the +5 comments were of the fringe global warming "skeptic" view. The notion that the prevailing view of Slashdot moderators is "anti-American" (ie liberal, translating from dittohead speak) is absurd. Perhaps the editors are mostly liberal, but the community has quite a large number of right-libertarians.

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
    5. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by ElephanTS · · Score: 1

      MOD PARENT UP.

      I know, I avoid political things on /. because of the huge right-wing bias. It shocks me sometimes how strong it is. Don't forget though - you're not alone on this.

      --
      spoonerize "magic trackpad"
    6. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Liselle · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Slashdot's moderation system is a form of censorship
      I don't think that word means what you think it means, sir. With two clicks I can see every -1 post in this whole discussion. You're a long-time user that ought to know this, you should be ashamed of yourself for calling the moderation system something that it is not.

      Also, if you don't see any Microsoft apologists on this website, even browsing at +4, you are not paying attention at all. In general there is an anti-MS bias around here, but if you open your eyes you'll find the dissenting opinions.

      On behalf of slashdotters with a clue, thank you for contributing to the dilution of a perfectly good word. Henceforth, let's associate "censorship" to mean "viewing threshold" on a stupid interbutts forum. That way, when REAL censorship happens, nobody will care.
      --
      Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
    7. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Stalyn · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Slashdot's moderation system is a form of censorship

      Censorship is the removal of material. Moderated comments are never removed but "removed from view" depending on your personal settings. However the comments are still there.

      --
      The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
    8. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      It's still censorship... the aim is to hide unpopular opinions from popular view. Down moderating unpopular opinions happens constantly on Slashdot... yes you can get around it, but most people probably leave their settings on default. It still doesn't matter, the goal of the moderation is censorship, plain and simple.

    9. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 2, Funny

      C'mon... I metamoderate as much as possible, it's the only check of censorship in this place. It's the one thing I applaud this site for. But you're dreaming if you don't think that unpopular opinions aren't moderated ALL THE TIME with the express purpose of censoring unpopular opinions. Also remember that liberal idiots like Kdawson are editors and have unlimited moderation points... and if you don't think the Slashdot editors aren't politically biased then you are blind or just willfully ignorant.

    10. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Gimme a break, Slashdot is overwhelmingly "left wing"... every once in a while a libertarian/conservative post gets modded up but it's fairly rare. Generally if an article is posted, the same 120 bland nonthinking comments are posted because everyone is afraid of getting moderated downward. This place is just a shrill greek chorus to the political bias of the editors.

    11. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 2, Funny

      It's called hypocrisy. You whine and cry about "censorship" and then turn around and censor an opinion you don't like with moderation.

    12. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by syrinx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I avoid political things on /. because of the huge right-wing bias.

      HAHAHAHAHA.

      I seriously hope you're kidding, or else you meant to type "free republic" instead of "/." or something. Slashdot's to the right of Stalin, perhaps, but that's about it.

      --
      Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
    13. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rob+Kaper · · Score: 1

      The same applies for YouTube and Google. It has nothing to do with censorship.

      Not a single person in the world is obligated to distribute your opinion. Restriction of freedom of speech would mean you yourself would no longer be able to.

    14. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Liselle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You need to work on your reading comprehension, sir. My issue with the grandparent is the mis-use of the word "censorship". I'm not denying that unpopular opinions get moderated down, I'm saying that moderation is not censorship. Additionally, the tools exist for users to read whatever unpopular posts that they like. You don't have to browse at the default threshold.

      --
      Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
    15. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll put an end to this mystery:

      Slashdot readers, raise your hand if you think that government should provide "free" internet as a public utility.

      <millions of hands waving in the air, and only a handful of readers sitting with arms crossed>

      Nope, just as I suspected, not a whole lot of libertarians here at all.

    16. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by IANAAC · · Score: 1
      I'm saying that moderation is not censorship.

      The G-GP said it was a form or censorship. And it is. Censorship is not always complete removal/blockage - it can also mean supression or silencing.

    17. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's really funny is watching idiots like you and gp competing for who can nail himself to a cross faster.

    18. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      It still doesn't matter, the goal of the moderation is censorship, plain and simple.

      No, the goal of moderation is to indicate your opinion of what someone else said. YOU have exactly the same horsepower, in that regard, as every other one of your peers. Don't have mod points? Then be more persuasive in your rhetoric or more illuminating with your facts. For example, you might start using the word "censorship" in keeping with its actual meaning. Once people see that you understand the definition, and may have some credibility, you have a better shot at the primary use of moderation, which is the amplification of what you say.

      For example: there are plenty of people who absolutely get hives over some of my opinions, here. I get all sorts of arguments. But I'm almost never modded down, despite certainly going against the grain of most users on this site. When I make a more lucid or useful observation, I frequently get modded up. My take on this is that when someone comes across as specifically whiny, can't seem to grasp what favorite words like "fascist" or "corporation" or "censorship" etc mean, that's when they tend to get modded down. Essentially, people are frequently given the thumbs-down for being poor communicators and/or showing poor critical thinking skills. As it should be.

      That's not censorship, it's your peers pointing out where you need some work on your debating skills or an expansion of your perception/perspective. Crying censorship out of context, as you're doing, simply robs meaning from the word, and makes it harder to talk about it when it's really being practiced... say, in China or Iran.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    19. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. Every other post I read is calling for more government as the solution to just about every imaginable problem. The slashdot crowd may not be too keen on the warfare/conformist state, but they are most definitely keen on the welfare/conformist state . (Internet as a public utility anyone? How about public education? What, how could I even question public education? There's the true test for slashdot.)

      That's what modern day politics calls "liberal", not "libertarian". (Of course, socialism actually represents an attack on individual liberty, but that's years of political double-speak working its magic.)

      Overall, I reckon the slashdot community overwhelmingly supports big government -- even if they disagree on the details, they obviously believe in the essence of big government which is employing coercion as the means (oops, I meant employing compassion as the means). They most certainly believe that "collective" rights trump individual rights, and that is exactly why they are not libertarians. (Yes, I know there is a subset here who do truly believe in individual liberty, but they are by far the minority.)

    20. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by nasch · · Score: 1
      The notion that the prevailing view of Slashdot moderators is "anti-American" (ie liberal, translating from dittohead speak) is absurd.
      What I took from that comment is that's it's popular to criticize the government here, and I don't think you could disagree with that. Whether that's what he meant I'm not sure, but gubmint criticism seems to come from the left and the right. Which is interesting actually...
    21. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Faux_Pseudo · · Score: 1

      While I agree in theory with what you are saying there is one nit I must pick. When a post is closed to new comments and archived the -1 and (i think) 0 post are not saved.

      So while you are correct in short term you are wrong in long term.

      But with meta-moderation and and all that the censorship is self-selecting, we are deciding what stays and what goes. Information wants to be free but it also wants to be ignorant of "can you imagine a flurby cluster of those" posts.

    22. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Liselle · · Score: 1

      How are people here silenced or supressed? There posts are right there in plain sight. There has been REAL censorship on this site, aka removal of posts, moderation is neither censorship nor a "form" of it (I see what you did there). If anything, the moderation system promotes posts worth reading, it doesn't obliterate posts not worth reading. It's a subtle but EXTREMELY IMPORTANT distinction.

      --
      Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
    23. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by DarkDaimon · · Score: 1

      I think of Slashdot's moderation system more like movie/game critics' ratings. They are just opinions that you can choose to listen to or not. Slashdot just makes it easier to ignore comments that rank low in the opinions of the majority. That is hardly censorship.

    24. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      The intention is to silence an opinion you do not agree with. The intention is censorship... sure you can get the opinion if you really want it... but by default those opinions are not shown on Slashdot. The fact is that there is a certain portion of this population that will cry about "censorship" like free speech zones and then turn around and try to downmod opinions they do not agree with. They downmod for the express purpose of suppressing that opinion.

    25. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      The intention of those who downmod unpopular opinions in this community is to silence those opinions that it does not agree with. The intention is to suppress unpopular opinions... by default unregistered users do not see posts modded to below zero. The intention of down-moderating is suppression of unpopular opinions.

    26. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      Dude, I dutifully metamoderate here... do you know how many posts I see that are marked (-1, flamebait) because they don't mimic the "Bush/Microsoft are evil incarnate" line here?

    27. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by jnaujok · · Score: 1

      Yes, I had one of those posts. I was rapidly modded up to +5 (Insightful/Informative). Two days later (when the main rush had passed) all of my +5 comments had been modded down to -1 (Flamebait). So, in a retroactive form of "censorship" those who disagreed with the skeptic point of view made sure that my comments would hit the archive as flamebait, making it nearly impossible to find a dissenting view from the "party line" when looking at the article from the archives.

      So, yes, there's an initial rush of conservative mod points, but the overall leaning is to damp those views down, and it appears that's the way it was handled on YouTube as well. I'm not talking about this one video (the Zucker video of Albright/Kim Jong Il) but of Michelle Malkin's postings, which were all just commentary. No nudity, no profanity, etc. Her videos were flagged, and when the YouTube "censorship board" saw the videos, they not only removed them, they also banned Malkin from the site. That's censorship plain and simple. She was banned for views they (YouTube) didn't agree with.

      Now, I think that DailyKos and Democratic Underground are a bunch of borderline lunatics, but I think they have every right to post whatever they want. More power to 'em. And, on Slashdot, I have never, ever used my mod points to mod down an opinion I disagree with unless it's phrased in pure inflamatory terms (ad hominem attacks, blatant mistruths, comparisons to certain German dictators during WWII). I have even modded up opinions I personally disagree with as long as they're couched as a profound argument or at least not a blatant attack.

      The only time that I would use the term anti-American is when someone tries to ban speech of any kind. That is unAmerican. And that's what YouTube did to Michelle Malkin.

      --
      Life, the Universe, and Everything... in my image.
    28. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Incidentally, what exactly do you mean by "liberarian/conservative"? Those two concepts are nearly opposite. "Conservatives" want big and powerful government (less individual freedom), while "libertarians" want limited constitutional government (more individual freedom).

      In fact, it makes more sense to lump together "liberal" and "conservative" because the two major parties both want bigger government -- they only bicker about HOW to spend your money, not whether to take it at all! Libertarians are nearly the exact opposite.

      Put it this way: the US government of today dwarfs the US government of only 100 years ago, both in revenue and power over the people. Over that period, which two parties have dominated politically? If they were really at odds, and only one of the two parties actually wanted to expand the powers of government, wouldn't you think that one would have more or less neutralized the effects of the other?

    29. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How are people here silenced or supressed? There posts are right there in plain sight.

      Word on the street is that certain IP have been blocked permanently from posting on slashdot.

      More commonly, anonymous comments are temporarily blocked in certain cases. As I understand it, if you post a controversial comment anonymously and someone disagrees with it and marks it down then your IP gets a temporary block.

      All this can be circumvented if someone is sufficiently determined but in practice these blocking policies do cut down dramatically on the number of controversial anonymous comments that get posted.

      Note that I don't really have much of an opinion on whether these blocks are a good thing or a bad thing.

    30. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      Hypocrisy, sir. You complain about censorship and then go and moderate an opinion as "flamebait" because you don't agree with it. It's called hypocrisy and they have it on Slashdot in large amounts.

    31. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Liselle · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure which is more absurd, the projection of your distorted world-view onto others (the intentions of people you don't even know), or the fact that you've decided that information that's not in your face by default is being "censored".

      The community here decides which posts to *highlight* through the moderation system, and M2 helps keep people honest. When moderators are given the ability to delete posts, call me. Until then, you are wrong.

      Slashdot does not show you every by default. It has a default threshold that most people find acceptable, and gives a great deal of options for you to customize your own /. experience. This is completely appropriate, and not censorship. My cable modem does not beam the contents of the Interbutt directly into my brain every morning, this doesn't mean that Comcast is censoring it, however it does mean that I have to work to find what I want. The moderation system exists for the convenience of people who want to use it, it is not mandatory to use.

      This is my final post on this subject.

      --
      Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
    32. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      This is my final post on this subject.

      For your own good... that's probably for the best.

      Honestly you are just swallowing the Slashdot Kool Aid. I metamoderate and the system cannot possibly hope to keep up with the large effect that mindless groupthink has on this place. It's why when an article is posted you get the same banal opinions and unfunny jokes... because of rampant karma whoring and fear of being downmodded for going against the groupthink.

      Just because a view is censored by democratic vote doesn't mean it's not censorship. And that's how Slashdot is censored, through democratic vote.

      The intention of marking a post "flaimbait" simply because you disagree with it is censorship, plain and simple. And it happens ALL THE TIME.

      When I metamoderate, post after post has been downmodded for going against the groupthink. There's no end to it, really. To believe it doesn't happen is just buying the Slashdot hype.

    33. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by phantomlord · · Score: 1

      that also depends on how you define conservative... I'm a conservative who might be labeled as more of a libertarian by others. I want a tiny, little federal government that mostly stays out of my life. Basically, I want a government that actually conforms to the document that gives it power, the Constitution.

      That said, I don't define myself as a libertarian because they often let their ideology block common sense. We can't have an entirely free market, we have to have some sort of anti-trust controls. We can't have entirely free speech (see "fire", libel, etc).

      I vote for the republicans only because they're the lesser of two evils. Given the modern nanny state, I'm not sure that we're on a path for anything short of total government subjugation. The choice between the two parties is only a matter of when.

      --
      Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
    34. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For the last time, man, the views AREN'T censored. The metamod system exists to seperate the interesting, insightful, funny, and otherwise informative posts from those that are NOT. Obviously, this system relies on the opinions and biases of the user, but if your post is not a troll or otherwise illogical/offtopic it's unlikely to be severely modded down. Sure, if your opinion is different from that of the user with mods points they're probably not going to mod you up, but as long as you're calm and rational you're not going to be modded into the ground.

      That said, I'm sure you can find all sorts of instances of logical, but unpopular, opinions that have been modded down. Generally, though, those posts aren't on topic and are brought up by someone with an axe to grind. Slashdot is liberal, but it's full of college educated techies, and for that reason alone it's always going to be somewhat left leaning (compared to Americans in general, at least.)

      Just to try and make this point even more clear: If a library has an unpopular book and "hides" it in some forgotten corner of the stacks, that is NOT censorship. The book is still indexed in the same manner as all the others, it just doesn't get the same primo shelf space as some of the more popular literature. Being sent to -1 hell is not being censored, it's just being relegated to the back of the thread. Even managing a -1 usually takes some offtopic or otherwise illogical rant, if you get modded down it's generally because you said something stupid!

    35. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      if your post is not a troll or otherwise illogical/offtopic it's unlikely to be severely modded down.

      Completely, totally, and utterly false. You couldn't be more wrong if you tried and you're obviously swallowing the Slashdot Kook Aid.

    36. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by DavidTC · · Score: 1

      Yeah, it's obviously some sort of insidious groupthink going on here.

      Or, and I know this is a crazy idea, but as the actual level of people who honestly believe in libertarian ideas is about 1% of the population, maybe it's just slashdot reflecting reality?

      The conservative vs. liberals, yes, that's tilted in favor of liberal here, as it is on most of the internet, or at least in the discussion areas of the internet. (Barring, of course, forums specifically set up for conservative viewpoints.) The libertarian vs. everyone else bias, however, is almost perfectly represented.

      And, FYI, it's called 'liberal' not because of any recent doubletalk, but because that's what it was called during the Renaissance and the enlightenment. The current sterotype of 'big spenders' is because they merged into the progressive movement during the New Deal, and, arguably, got rid of them in the 1960, whereupon they got fixated on what charges had been made, 'welfare' and 'social security', managed to link those to their civil liberties stuff, and stopped actually trying to find new solutions to problems like actual progressives.

      Actual liberal philosophy is a lot different than what's been passed off as liberal for the past 50 years. (As is actual progressive philosophy.)

      Of course, the same thing is going with 'conservatives'. Both parties have absolutely nonsensical platforms, because each of them is composed of at least three different philosophies they've sucked in at various times, some of them getting modernized and some of them not.), and on top of it, both of them don't even follow their platform.

      And, of course, on top of that, we have Bush running amuck, and he's not even doing what the Republicans normally do, much less what they claim to do or what they should do to be 'conservative'.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
    37. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      Actually, troll, I don't participate in moderation. Although it's still a moot point because Slashdot isn't, as I tried to pound through your cranium a bit subtly, a government.

    38. Re:Slashdot accused of censorship? by Legion303 · · Score: 1

      "The same applies for YouTube and Google. It has nothing to do with censorship."

      Were my words on the subject not clear enough? The only entity who can "censor" is either a government or an agency acting on behalf of a government. Since we seem to be in agreement on this point, why bother replying to my original post?

  12. Wrong wrong wrong and wrong by JonnyCalcutta · · Score: 2, Informative
    Please re-read the article. The warning is attached when it is flagged by viewers. It then goes into a queue to await review by a YouTube employee. The YouTube employee then decides what further action to take, such as remove the warning or remove the video

    So once again, nothing to see here, please move along.

  13. It's also worth by OverlordQ · · Score: 0, Troll

    It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

    It's also worth pointing out that there's plenty of videos of people stripping on cam, yet none of them are censored.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:It's also worth by epiphani · · Score: 1

      Well duh, who would want to censor that? I'd take that over depressing worlds-gonna-end crap.

      --
      .
    2. Re:It's also worth by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      It's also worth pointing out that there's plenty of videos of people stripping on cam, yet none of them are censored.

      Oh yeah, prove it. With links. Lots of links. Please, cute women only.

    3. Re:It's also worth by hcob$ · · Score: 1

      Sorry, I don't want to see 325lb. Wanda who thinks she's one sexy b1tch shaking what her momma (and 25 years of McDonalds) gave her.

      However, when Demi Moore, Yasmen Bleeth, Hedi Klum, et. al. start stripping, then I'll be on YouTube in a heartbeat.

      --
      Cliff Claven
      K.E.G. Party Chairman
      Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
  14. Oh! So it's OK... by Charles+Wilson · · Score: 1

    Better check out your Categories of Understanding, pal! "Oh, it's just a conservative site making these complaints." Pedophiles, ax murderers, conservatives... Tell me again about these high ideals, diversity, freedom of expression and the like. Oh yeah! For approved thought only. CW

    1. Re:Oh! So it's OK... by squiggleslash · · Score: 1
      Pedophiles, ax murderers, conservatives
      ...but you repeat yourself...
      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    2. Re:Oh! So it's OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Better check out your Categories of Understanding, pal! "Oh, it's just a conservative site making these complaints." Pedophiles, ax murderers, conservatives...
      It doesn't say "it's just a conservative site", it says it's a "wee bit conservative" which is a factual statement (if you think the site isn't conservative, show that they don't advocate contemporary American conservative ideals and you'd have a valid point). If you think that conservative equals ax murderer, then that's your own opinion, not the one in the summary. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with the site being conservative but it's nice to know which perspective they take on things. I think it's much more honest to say "We are conservatives and we stand for such and such ideals and we hope we can convince you they are good ideals." instead of "We are a completely unbiased, objective source and know the Ultimate Truth and if you don't believe us you are an idiot." - the former would make me a lot more receptive to their ideas than the latter.
    3. Re:Oh! So it's OK... by Charles+Wilson · · Score: 1

      Please... Re-read the post, PLEASE. Notice that the offending sentence is in quotes. Why would I do that? Could it be...I don't know...SARCASM? "No, actually, it's just that from time to time, I feel obligated to put certain sentences in quotes." Why not try looking at the original post on slashdot? What is the purpose of stating that the site is a wee bit conservative? Informational? New policy? Maoism 2006? C'mon! Wake up and smell the reefer! BTW, I notice you don't put your Categories of Understanding in your post. Why not? Scared? "Oh, you see, I can transcend my categories because I'm ____________!" Just another _________. CW

    4. Re:Oh! So it's OK... by Charles+Wilson · · Score: 1

      George- Thank you for your contribution to our knowledge base. My above reply was supposed to directed to a commenter "below my threshhold" and not you. Just one question: Do you think these sheets make me look fat? See you at the conflagration, CW

    5. Re:Oh! So it's OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Haha, I love this story. It's got all these conservatives whining about their oppression, when it's quite clear that a CONSERVATIVE site whined about LIBERAL goooootube censoring their CONSERVATIVE video, when in reality, it was USERS who flagged it.

      The video itself was a CONSERVATIVE video, and it makes every damn bit of sense to mention that the site that complained leaned the same way politically as the video.

    6. Re:Oh! So it's OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, he could have complained about how lumping pedophiles and ax murderors in with coservatives is unfair to the pedophiles and ax murders. "On behalf of the nearly 4% of ax murderors and 2% of pedophiles who are not conservatives, I resent your equating the three."

    7. Re:Oh! So it's OK... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My name isn't George. The words in my link are to a JE where I praise George Lucas. Apologies if it's easy to misread or anything.

  15. can anyone get their facts straight by b17bmbr · · Score: 1, Insightful

    only the government can censor anything. when a firm makes a decision to purposefully not provide content, that is not censorship. it might not be a policy you or I agree with, fine. every time I hear so and so is "censoring", it makes my blood boil. if you don't like waht a company does, such as Walmart not selling certain cd's, DON"T SHOP THERE, if you don't like YouTube's policies, open you own damn website. when the government says you can't do those things, then cry censorship. until then, just say YouTube made a corporate decision...

    --
    My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
    1. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by endemoniada · · Score: 1

      It seems words like censorship, fascism and terrorism are the new 'hip' things to blurt right out these days. It doesn't matter what you talk about, or with whom. Just yell one of those words at the top of your lung when your opponent is most obviously correct, and you automatically get a point.

      Rather like how any and every blog/article with one of those words in its headline will automatically end up on the Digg frontpage...

      --
      Blog -
    2. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by computational+super · · Score: 2, Funny
      every time I hear so and so is "censoring", it makes my blood boil.

      Wal-mart is censoring movies and music. CBS, NBC and ABC are censoring TV. ClearChannel is censoring the radio. Barnes and Noble is censoring authors. AT&T is censoring the phone system. Albertsons is censoring food distributors.

      Nyah nyah! Boil blood, boil!

      --
      Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
    3. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by maxume · · Score: 1

      It's still censorship. It's not illegal or unconstitutional, but it's censorship just the same. It is worth making the distinction that they are censoring their site, not the content.

      --
      Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
    4. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by truthsearch · · Score: 1

      Censorship by anyone is censorship...

      From you-know-where:

      "Censorship is the control of speech and other forms of human expression. In many (but not all) cases, it is exercised by governing bodies."

    5. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      Censorship is the control of speech and other forms of human expression

      Then thank you for pointing out how the case in question is not censorship. YouTube's flagging system may be subject to user whim, and may be enforced by customer services people with idealogical axe to grind, but it's not censorship. Because they are not "controlling human expression." Humans have all sorts of outlets for expression, and can start their own, if they want to. Or, they can here in the US. In China, though, your ability to use a site like YouTube, or to start your own if you don't like their own audience/policies IS controlled. That is censorship. You're confusing "editorial policy" or "audience preferences" in a particular, private venue with some that it's not. What is your agenda, exactly, that you have an interest in diluting the word "censorship" and taking away its real meaning by misusing it in the way you do?

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    6. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by truthsearch · · Score: 1

      You sir, are an idiot. You did notice that I merely defined censorship, didn't you? This particular case is not censorship. I was criticizing the notion that only government censorship meets the definition. How can I misuse a word by only pasting its definition? You're overreacting to the wrong poster.

    7. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by ScentCone · · Score: 1

      I was criticizing the notion that only government censorship meets the definition

      And that's exactly what I was responding to. Unless a government (say, Cuba's) actually does control what private people can publish or broadcast (or post/see online), then it isn't censorship. There's no penalty to paid for publishing something contrary to what some other private party would publish for you, there's no ability for such a third party to limit what you can say... so "censorship" truly is the wrong word for anything other than government action/limits. Whether you personally think the YouTube issue at hand is or isn't censorship isn't my point: it's that you think a private entity, in the land of the 1st amendment, can censor... that's what I'm debating. They can't, because you can just walk away and talk somewhere else.

      And, aren't you glad that I'm not screaming that, by calling me an idiot, you're censoring me, you fascist blah blah blah...? But when you trivialize words like that by proposing that they're meaningful in a context in which they're not, it's exactly what fuels the absurd use of those concepts when someone simply, really, means "I don't like you because you don't agree with me." I'd just be happier if we didn't prop up people who feel more and more inclined to trot out the high-power words describing totalitarianism and the like just because they can't fend off an argument that's over their heads or simply shows them to be wrong or pointlessly whining.

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    8. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by tehpwn · · Score: 0

      I, for one, welcome our new Dollarcracy overlords !

    9. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by multisync · · Score: 1

      From what I've read in this thread - I haven't RTFA - I don't think YouTube is guilty of censorship, but I think you full of it if you think "only the government can censor anything." Any time *anyone* takes steps to prevent someone from speaking, or otherwise expressing an idea, it is censorship. It is the motive that counts. If YouTube pulled a video for fear of beings sued for violating copyright, I don't think anyone could reasonably take issue with it. OTOH, if they pulled a video for no reason other than that someone with the power to do so disagreed with the content of the video, it is censorship.

      They may be perfectly within their rights to post or not post content as they see fit, but the rest of us are equally within our rights to point out that they are engaging in censorship.

      A Real World example would be a newspaper that solicits letters but only publishes those that reflect their own point of view. Again, they are entitled to print what they choose, but if they want to be seen as a credible news source, they will be brave enough to publish things they don't agree with, confident they can make a case for their own point of view.

      --
      I don't care why you're posting AC
    10. Re:can anyone get their facts straight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How come when the government bothers you no one says "open your own government?" Sometimes there isn't a choice. That you come right out of the closet and make the blanket statement that corporations cannot engage in censorship betrays your inability to comprehend anything like reality.

  16. Also by thefirelane · · Score: 0

    It also should be noted:

    1) I believe I read the "censorship" was just the user community flagging the video, not Youtube. Of course, the real point of this is the desire to feel 'persecuted' so they don't both pointing that out. It is better PR if it seems your ideas are being 'censored'.. instead of 'no one wants to hear them'.

    2) Even if they are.... who cares? I thought 'conservatives' were all about individual rights, as in, a private company can do whatever the hell it wants. They are quick to point this out with protestors acting against private companies (crashing shareholder meetings, etc) so why the double standard?

    1. Re:Also by tbannist · · Score: 1

      These are Republicans, not conservatives. It's really not wise to confuse to the two. Republicans only believe in rights for Repbulicans. Anyone who's not Republican (or voting for them) should not be entitled to any rights, especially the right to vote.

      You might think my comments are a little extreme, but here's a transcript from Politically Incorrect where Ann Coulter specifically states women shouldn't be allowed to vote because they tend to vote for Democrats.

      --
      Fanatically anti-fanatical
    2. Re:Also by hcob$ · · Score: 1
      These are Republicans, not conservatives. It's really not wise to confuse to the two. Republicans only believe in rights for Repbulicans. Anyone who's not Republican (or voting for them) should not be entitled to any rights, especially the right to vote.
      Make that Republicans AND Democrats, and then you have an accurate statement.
      --
      Cliff Claven
      K.E.G. Party Chairman
      Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
  17. Ah, so it didn't employ any "good censorship" by computational+super · · Score: 1
    limited access to a political ad that mocks the Clinton administration's policy on North Korea, but contains no profanity, nudity or other factors generally thought objectionable.

    Yes, it's important that we only censor based on one arbitrary set of factors than a different arbitrary set of factors.

    --
    Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
  18. This will probably be considered flame bait but... by rhartness · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Fowl! Is it necessary to state a source as 'conservative'. Rightists typically view sites like BBC and CNN as 'Liberal' while leftists view sites like Fox News as 'conservative'.

    Most people can distinguish when any other site tends to lean in the direction they disagree with. Must we label conservative sources and only conservative sources?

  19. So? by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 1

    Some idiot marked Harold Pinter's lecture inappropriate aswell. I had to register on youtube just to be able to watch that video.

    The video is highly critical of the USA, but I don't see anything inappropriate in it.

    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
    1. Re:So? by endemoniada · · Score: 1

      It doesn't have to be inappropriate as long as it's inconvenient. If it doesn't suit your agenda, just yell "TERRORISM!!!" and you automatically win. That's how society works these days...

      --
      Blog -
    2. Re:So? by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 1

      Btw, Pinter's lecture can be read here in text. I just like to hear people talk, it conveys more meaning the way people emphasize things.

      --
      It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
      Be yourself no matter what they say
    3. Re:So? by 91degrees · · Score: 1

      TERRORISM!

      I win.

    4. Re:So? by pubjames · · Score: 1

      Yes, marking that video as inappropriate is terrible. How can a lecture by a nobel prize winner be inappropriate?

      It is interesting to contrast the intelligent, clear discourse of Pinter's lecture with the Benny Hill style of that political advertisement.

  20. Watch it by pubjames · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yes, I just watched it.

    I don't know about anyone else, but that video is very persuasive. Its intelligent and serious perspective on the issues has made me realise how the current situation with North Korea is actually the fault of the Democrats. I suggest everyone watches it to see the quality of discourse on the Republican side of this debate.

  21. Same with google video by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They have been knocking the political documentary Terrorstorm (it's quite good, BTW) down from the true count, they keep re setting it at zero so it doesn't make it into the top popular lists. Here is an article from the website about it

    http://prisonplanet.com/articles/october2006/05100 6googlecensors.htm

    And here's a thought about the phony left/right deal (article above sdaying worldnet is "conservative". I suggest growing beyond that basic understanding of politics and money and power.. That lefty/right deal exists because the goons want to keep you there. The real schism is the establisment globalists versus everyone else. They only see you as a source of exploitation and profit, and use their large scale corporate pull to keep the populations split along their phony "party" lines. Want some more evidence? Look at the blackbox voting, the only work being done against it is coming from the smaller scle grtassroots of the right, left and center and independents, the party "leaders" D or R for the most part are cooperating in ignoring it, and the MSM is going way out of their way to keep it out of the headlines, even though we have an important election coming up and it should be a top story daily. also notice how the D and R "parties", along with the corporate media, DON'T cover third parties or independents very much with their "news" reporting. Without an honest vote, and without real choices, we are really really screwed. yet fluff pieces still rule, madonna still makes more headlines than the hacked vote.

      This is done *on purpose*, especially with the TV broadcasters who use the alleged public airwaves, as part of the bread and circuses congame the ruling goons have always used to keep their herds under control. and now it has spread to the net, a natural progression. Remember, if it is profitable for a corporation to lie or do wrong, and they think they can get away with it-they will, with few exceptions. Nature of their "greed is good" beast.

    These big corporations, even including youtube and google and yahoo and who cares, a ton of them, are part of the global elite now, so they will "act accordingly" to their "keep themselves rolling in loot" interests. It's up to everyone else who truly cares about freedom and honesty to see through their globalist bullshit and then "act accordingly".

  22. Re:Per say...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Language nazi" would be more like it.

    Latin != English.

  23. wee bit? by JanneM · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

    Yes, like Charles Manson was a wee bit disturbed.

    --
    Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
  24. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by Kohath · · Score: 1

    Also, if you disagree with someone on politics, facts don't matter.

  25. these critics have no internet skills by m0llusk · · Score: 1

    The basis of this story has to do with web site users not being able to come to terms with a fairly simple flagging system that can be worked around by logging into a free account. There are similar problems with the craigslist site references to staff actions when user flags get content yanked. Web sites should clearly explain why content is posted, rated, or pulled, but like most other web content features this is a business opportunity that the market may or may not demand or value. Only time will tell, and trying to force the issue isn't likely to work.

  26. Re:Per say...? by elrous0 · · Score: 1, Funny
    Latin != English.

    I'll save this post as a memento.

    -Eric

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  27. Anti-Piracy options compared to Censorship by Alien54 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Also there is the forthcoming YouTube AntiPiracy system. or as one wit put it: YouTube is preparing to implement new technology necessary to make it suck

    A technology designed to detect copyright material could give YouTube a needed dose of legal legitimacy and calm any concerns Google Inc. has about spending $1.65 billion on the Internet video site. But that same technology could hurt YouTube's edgy appeal.

    While YouTube is known as the place to find almost any kind of video clip, recent agreements with high-profile content creators require YouTube to deploy an audio-signature technology that can spot a low-quality copy of a licensed music video or other content. YouTube would have to substitute an approved version of the clip or take the material down automatically.

    Analysts said that stepped-up monitoring by entertainment companies raises the likelihood that YouTube fans won't find what they're used to getting -- and will go searching for the next online video rebel. [...]

    Some analysts doubt the screening technology will be foolproof. For example, detecting someone singing a copyright song on a homemade video could be difficult because the sound would not exactly match the original recording.


    etc. Nevermind Homeland Security, if you want to be paranoid.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  28. Mod parent DOWN! by Servo · · Score: 1

    Ok, just kidding...

    100% censorship free is not only impossible, its not acceptable. I'm not saying we should be censoring things we don't agree with, but its inevitable that things considered offensive will eventually be censored by the community in one form or another. Remember, just because you have free speech doesn't mean you get to stick it in my face.

    --
    A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
  29. So its' a youth oriented (liberal) site. by arthurpaliden · · Score: 0

    So lets get this straight. Right wing talk radio will not give time to 'liberal' ideas but a left leaning "youth oriented arts & entertainment" site must. IF the right wing wants access to a "youth oriented arts & entertainment" they can create one. However the target demographic, youth, is rarly jaded enough to be right wing.

    1. Re:So its' a youth oriented (liberal) site. by Quila · · Score: 1
      So lets get this straight. Right wing talk radio will not give time to 'liberal' ideas



      They do it all the time. James Carville makes the rounds quite often.

    2. Re:So its' a youth oriented (liberal) site. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Carville" is to "liberal" as "fish" is to "bicycle".

    3. Re:So its' a youth oriented (liberal) site. by Quila · · Score: 1

      "Carville" is to "liberal" as "fish" is to "bicycle".

      Technically correct, as Carville doesn't ride a liberal. He rides a conservative (Mary Matalin).

      Rim shot!

      Aside from that, if you don't think Carville qualifies as a "liberal," then you are way off the deep end on the left side of the pool, probably the exact opposite of Pat Buchannan.

  30. profanity and nudity by oliverthered · · Score: 1

    If there already censoring profanity and nudity what's wrong with censoring other content.

    Personally I don't think they should be censoring anything.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  31. hrm by Nasarius · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Does anyone else get the feeling that the Slashdot userbase is more conservative than the rest of the population? Bush's approval rating hovers around 35%, but the number of uprated pro-Bush comments on recent political posts is astonishing. Apparently, intelligence and critical thinking don't go hand in hand. Economics is always debatable, but how does any thinking person look at the Bush foreign or social policy and see anything but corruption, insanity, and abject failure?

    --
    LOAD "SIG",8,1
    1. Re:hrm by roster238 · · Score: 1

      Sadly I can say the same for any administration since the Reagan years. I have come to realize that voting only encourages this behavior.

      --
      I swear I didn't know it was loaded...
    2. Re:hrm by krell · · Score: 1

      "but how does any thinking person look at the Bush foreign or social policy and see anything but corruption, insanity, and abject failure?"

      The other side said the same about Clinton. This particular "debate" boils down to whether or not you like the guy because he is in your political side (or against your political side).

      --
      Where were you when the voynix came?
    3. Re:hrm by Nasarius · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Heh, sure. But there are degrees; Bush 41 is clearly less insane. I'm just happy for the one redeeming feature of the US electoral system: I live in New York, so I don't feel the obligation to vote for idiots like Kerry or (gag, please god no, don't run in 2008) Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, it is somewhat depressing that the outcome is inevitable before the candidate is even picked.

      --
      LOAD "SIG",8,1
    4. Re:hrm by roster238 · · Score: 1

      You are correct. No sane, intelligent, wise person would even consider the job. You have to have a screw loose to want that level of scrutiny in your life.

      --
      I swear I didn't know it was loaded...
  32. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 0, Troll

    So, unless someone toes a liberal party line their opinion has no value?

    So, unless someone believes in a world that isn't defined by cartoonish political theater, they lack the intelligence to understand a joke of wry understatement?

  33. Manson in 08 by roster238 · · Score: 1, Troll

    Did you know he was running in 08? He is a Democrat with a plan. No matter how disturbed at least he has a plan.

    --
    I swear I didn't know it was loaded...
    1. Re:Manson in 08 by roster238 · · Score: 1

      The moderator is obviously a Democrat. I will consider his rating an editorial comment.

      --
      I swear I didn't know it was loaded...
  34. maybe it was the comments not the video by prockcore · · Score: 1

    It could've been flagged as inappropriate for the comments, not the video. Several of them are calling for the assassination of Clinton.

  35. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by shrubsky · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "What's wrong with being conservative? One word: greed."

    OK, I've already posted something on this thread that'll make me unpopular, so why stop now?

    being conservative != greed

    To a conservative, wanting to take someone else's money is being greedy. To a liberal, wanting to keep your own money is being greedy.

    --
    I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.
  36. the real culprit is Google by ElephanTS · · Score: 0

    I don't think youTube has been censoring. The real story of the last few weeks is Google video censoring Alex Jones' Terrorstorm by reseting the views counter to keep it from the top10. There's a link here:

    http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2006/0 91006googleadmits.htm

    Most people don't believe that GV made a technical error twice on this particular film when no others were effected. For this reason some people were concerned when Google bought youTube.

    Personally I think that (if they're not already) it's only a matter of time before Google becomes 'evil'. There are certain consequences to being a huge public traded company.

    --
    spoonerize "magic trackpad"
    1. Re:the real culprit is Google by alexgieg · · Score: 1

      Google made massive contributions to the George Soros party (those guys we call democrats) in the last elections. It's obviously an interested party (oops!).

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    2. Re:the real culprit is Google by DrXym · · Score: 1

      You only have to read the words of the article that you link to realise Google weren't "censoring" anything. It was a change in their stat gathering that affected all content. Their informed and reasonable response told the complainant as much. The problem of course is that Prison planet, Alex Jones and his viewer / listeners thrive on paranoid and irrational conspiracy shite. So it's no wonder that an appeal to their reason had no effect. They have none.

    3. Re:the real culprit is Google by gsslay · · Score: 1
      Anyone who has spent any time on Google Video knows about these claims, and those on similar conspiracy nut films. The people who put them on Google are happy to spam the comment sections of other videos in order to direct people to their shoddy videos and get the message out.

      It's also interesting to note that their logic here is one of "argumentum ad populum". i.e. lots of people have viewed this video, therefore it must be true, and it becomes more true the more people view it. Therefore, in order to suppress the truth, Google have to conceal how many people have viewed it. (It is also taken for granted that all who view it are convinced of its truth.) And so, the conspiracy nut believes, their crusade towards revealing the truth draws ever nearer.

      Naturally, as conspiracy nuts, there's no point trying to discuss opposing facts and reason with them, as this is just further evidence of the all pervading conspiracy. But no matter how many people view their video, it cannot make fact the fantasies of the foolish and ignorant. And the conspiracy in their heads will never cease, because that is what makes it so fascinating to them. If their suspicions were ever, amazingly, proven correct, there will always be another conspiracy within the conspiracy to keep the ball rolling for them.

  37. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by gurps_npc · · Score: 2, Insightful
    No. It means that the WorldNetDaily intentionally published a false, inflamatory story in the hopes of getting people to click on the video and watch it.

    They definitely managed to get a lot more PR than such a tiny, silly, thing deserved.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  38. YouTube Censorship by thethibs · · Score: 2, Interesting
    It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

    Like Slashdot could be described as just a wee bit liberal?

    --
    I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
    1. Re:YouTube Censorship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slashdot is leftist, and it is popular for leftists to call themselves "liberal", but the original definition (and the definition used many places outside the U.S.) is different:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

    2. Re:YouTube Censorship by thethibs · · Score: 1

      I think we have that one figured out:

      Classical Liberal == NeoCon

      --
      I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
  39. That's just a working theory, not a fact by artemis67 · · Score: 1

    Every major news organization has asked YouTube why the video got flagged as inappropriate. YouTube has not given a reason.

    If the answer was as simple as the user community flagging the video, why don't they just say that?

  40. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by dsci · · Score: 1

    Except it was not a joke. That line in the /. summary was probably put there for one purpose: to flame.

    Either to flame the liberals to come out and say "yeah right, curse you WND."

    Or to flame (those few) conservatives on /. to defend WND.

    If I may paraphrse the GP, I'll now ask YOU: if you don't toe the party line here on /., you "lack intelligence"?

    --
    Computational Chemistry products and services.
  41. Right wing crap is objectionable by toby · · Score: 0, Troll
    ...any intelligent person who watched the ad would understand :)

    That smell in the air this morning isn't napalm (for once) -- it's desperation among Republican lunatics.

    --
    you had me at #!
  42. Re:This will probably be considered flame bait but by Overzeetop · · Score: 1

    Yes, it is. It is a salient addition to the discussion. You may argue which way certain mainstream media outlets lean, but when the source is particularly partisan (say, the Washington Times, or The American Prospect) it should be noted that there is celarly an agenda behind the outrage.

    If /. ran a story about new scientific research that differences in language usage could affect the way you view food and the total amount of calories your body feels it needs, would you be curious? If the editor noted that the story was currently running in the Weekly World News, would that put the story in perspective? I think so.

    --
    Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
  43. You need look no further by paranode · · Score: 1

    Than the wide acceptance of Michael Moore films as 'fact', to know that this would be true.

  44. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by @madeus · · Score: 1

    So, unless someone toes a liberal party line their opinion has no value?

    When someone who is politically motivated makes an assertion that is not true, then their opinion on the matter has no value.

    It's not what I would call a "liberal party line" it's more a "human beings with an ounce of common sense line".

    Of course, if you don't like it you are free to go with the conservative party line that it's all a conspiracy by "the liberal media".

  45. Oxdung by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

    The video is plainly accessible.

  46. It's also worth pointing out... by artemis67 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that Slashdot is just a wee bit liberal.

    1. Re:It's also worth pointing out... by freeweed · · Score: 1

      A much wiser man than I once said:

      "Reality has a liberal bias".

      --
      Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
    2. Re:It's also worth pointing out... by scheming+daemons · · Score: 1
      A much wiser man than I once said:

      "Reality has a liberal bias".

      Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central is that man.

      --
      "I have as much authority as the pope, I just
      don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin

    3. Re:It's also worth pointing out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's worth pointing out that compared to most of Europe, the US political spectrum ranges all the way from "right-wing" to "ultra-right-wing".

      Try talking to some foreigners abour politics. It's enlightening.

    4. Re:It's also worth pointing out... by Xonstantine · · Score: 0

      That really all depends on how you define "reality", and "liberal".

      Today's Democrats are reactionary leftists, not liberals in the classical sense. The end-state for the Democratic vision of America is a transnational elite (and super rich, as in Soros, Ted Turner, and others) ruling over (benignly, of course) the teeming masses, managing our dieoff as humanely as possible (since humans are such a threat to the environment, the only remediation is our removal). This is the cutting edge "liberal" ideology, the only novel ideas they are presenting today. Granted, it's the fringe, but the fringe is holding the leash and now has the money. It remains to be seen if the Democratic party faithful will follow them off a cliff.

    5. Re:It's also worth pointing out... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not just Europe either, make that 'most of the world'.

      Many Americans have gotten quite spoiled by being able to ignore many points of view by simply labeling them as representative of a 'fringe left' in the Democratic party, and thus not even worthy of any contemplation or discussion, when on a global scale that's actually just about where by far the most people are at.

      The problem is that for right-wing Republicans, getting anything less than half the amount of media coverage that 'liberal' points of view get is the point where to start to grumble about unfair bias and being victimized by the 'left-wing media'. But this is the Internet, and sites like Google News, You Tube and Slashdot cater to a worldwide audience, where the Republican points of view are radical and fringe, and 'liberal' is just centrist.

  47. WorldNetDaily lying? Say it ain't so! by geekfuzz · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you're surprised, you're not paying attention.

  48. Agree or disagree with the politics... by ChePibe · · Score: 0

    Watching Kim Jong Il play basketball (or at least attempt to...) and then his... uh... post game antics are worth it, even if you can't stand the rest.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h3GPc_yMCE

  49. hey now! by SuperStretch · · Score: 0

    It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

    And the top 3 TV news corps in America are perfectly non-biased too, right?

    People keep talking about conservatives being hypocrites, but in fact that is hypocritical because liberals are just as hypocritical.

    I hate that word. So don't get your panties all in a bundle about it. If you think that this was premature trolling on WorldNetDaily's part, just remember Dan Rather a few months back.

    --
    Help me get a new laptop - http://nocreditcard.yourgiftsfree.com/?id=3012
    1. Re:hey now! by SuperStretch · · Score: 0

      So I get bad karma? Way to let political opinions get in teh way of m0deratz0ring

      --
      Help me get a new laptop - http://nocreditcard.yourgiftsfree.com/?id=3012
  50. But what about Michelle Malkin? by sinner6 · · Score: 1

    They banned CONSERVITVE blogger Michelle Malkin. Why was that? (I am asking here, I really don't know) Even the (usually liberal) New York Times was very sympathic to the censoring of Malkin.

    1. Re:But what about Michelle Malkin? by Enry · · Score: 1

      There are times Malkin makes Ann Coulter look to be the sane one.

      Example: A few months ago Malkin went off in a that was in my Sunday paper about how the US Air Force was covering up the fact that muslim-looking people were found outside an air force base with rocket launchers, then went off from there. Unfortunately, the previous Thursday (i.e. days earlier), it was revealed that her basis for the claim never existed. No, Virginia, there were no muslim-looking people, no rocket launchers, no coverup.

      For the most part, she represents what's wrong with blogging when it gets carried over to the "MSM" - they think they're journalists giving you the 'real story', but they never bother to make sure that what they're writing about actually happened. Now, you could say "b-b-b-b-but Dan Rather!", but you'd be wrong. Rather was sacked, and that was the end of it. Had Malkin been held to the same journalistic standards, she would have been fired long ago.

    2. Re:But what about Michelle Malkin? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Rather was fired? News to me! He retired and still does stuff for them. And this wasn't the first time he'd gotten in trouble either, just the first time he got called on it.

      Dan was not popular with other news reporters even, a lot of his colleges disliked him because he had a habit of playing fast and loose with the facts. But because he got popular, he got away with it.

  51. Liberal! by alexgieg · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Nice! Slashdot is now entering the field of discriminating against conservative news sources by tagging them as such. Good idea, folks! After all, we know that liberalism is 99% of time correct, while conservatism is 99% of the time wrong. Our teachers in high-school and college, who made it sure we learnt such an obvious fact of nature, wouldn't lie to us, nor would MTV, or the NYT, would they?

    --
    Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    1. Re:Liberal! by arthurpaliden · · Score: 1

      If the conservative element does not like the liberal bias in schools then they should go into education instead of business.

    2. Re:Liberal! by Dhalka226 · · Score: 1

      So what?

      Personally, I don't see anything wrong with announcing potential biases in articles. Understanding potential biases is important to being able to judge the credibility of presented information.

      As far as /. itself goes, I don't think anybody who comes here assumes that it is an unbiased medium. So in that same spirit, you can use that knowledge to evaluate things as they are posted here. If you don't like the way the majority of slashdotters lean, I'm sure there are sites out there that are either less biased or more biased in whatever direction you would prefer. Nothing is stopping you from using them.

      Frankly I would much rather have these issues right out in the open where everybody knows them and can evaluate them accordingly than, say, Fox News who has a definite conservative bias but claims to be "fair and balanced."

      What is the problem?

    3. Re:Liberal! by Omnifarious · · Score: 1

      Except that the majority of the big lies we've been hearing lately have come from one camp and not the other. HHOS.

      Truthfully, I'd rather have heavily biased news sources flagged. Salon is a moderately biased news source. indymedia should be flagged as highly biased. And I agree with you to an extent that a heavily conservatively biased source is more likely to get flagged on Slashdot. It's partly because Slashdot has a mild bias itself, and partly because there have been an explosion in recent years of heavily conversatively biased news sources trying to pretend to be objective and/or middle-of-the-road.

    4. Re:Liberal! by mgb · · Score: 1

      Are you saying that WorldNetDaily is not a conservative organistaion. If it is then how is conservative then identifying it as such discrimination.

    5. Re:Liberal! by toddhisattva · · Score: 1, Informative

      I cut people all kinds of slack if they're trying to be funny.

      I think calling WND "wee bit conservative" is funny, because it's such an understatement.

      WND is not just conservative, it is stupidly and blindly so. WND is an embarrassment to the conservative tradition of Buckley and Strauss. It is extremely low-quality and sloppy. It's sort of an Ann Coulter style site - shoot first, research later.

      I mean, it's less accurate than the New York Times, and that takes some serious negligence.

    6. Re:Liberal! by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 1

      Slashdot is now entering the field of discriminating against conservative news sources by tagging them as such.

      So your argument is that lesser disclosure is better than greater disclosure?

      I would think it would be common sense that the more extreme a viewpoint a media outlet holds, in EITHER direction, the larger a grain of salt one should take its content with. Perhaps it is not.

      After all, we know that liberalism is 99% of time correct, while conservatism is 99% of the time wrong.

      Who said that? Certainly no one here. Put your straw man to bed, he's getting tired.

    7. Re:Liberal! by dhakbar · · Score: 1

      How did this garbage get modded +5? This is fucking retarded.

    8. Re:Liberal! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Retarded" isn't very politically correct for a liberal. "Mentally handicapped". Please.

  52. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by squiggleslash · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Well, as the other responder, Shrubsky, implies, there's more to it than greed.

    Greed is just a function of conservatism, which revolves around the principle of evil. Greed is simply an attribute of conservatism because it is evil, in much the same way as, say, lying or hypocracy is.

    I think you owe conservatives an apology for stating one of their principles completely out of context, as if it's the whole of conservatism, and that it doesn't have some principled basis.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  53. Yes, they were censoring. by Arathon · · Score: 1

    Actually, *informing* others that someone or some site has what you consider to be a "historical political bias" is not a legitimate act. It's a judgment call, and one that a news source ought not to make. As you said yourself, "They said it, and anybody can read it." So, let people reading the article on WND find out for themselves what bias it has - don't "figure it out for them." To be clear, I would agree with the assessment in the Slashdot post. But it's not relevant. The original story, if you check the facts, was actually a relevant story about a mistake that YouTube made and has since corrected.

    1. Re:Yes, they were censoring. by Jeremi · · Score: 1
      Actually, *informing* others that someone or some site has what you consider to be a "historical political bias" is not a legitimate act. It's a judgment call, and one that a news source ought not to make. As you said yourself, "They said it, and anybody can read it."


      I disagree -- I think it's exactly this fear of making any judgment calls (to avoid being considered "biased") that makes the mainstream news so ineffective. Of course the news provider is going to make judgment calls about the reliability of its sources. It does that when deciding which news stories to run, and which sources to quote -- it can't then pretend to "report, and let the viewers decide", as if it was merely a passive data conduit. It's not, and presenting news without the necessary context is lying by omission.


      Quoting someone about an issue in which they have an obvious conflict of interest and deliberately not informing the viewers about that conflict of interest (because they are supposed to figure it out for themselves) isn't news, it's propaganda.

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  54. Re:Per say...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You will save the post as a "to remember"?

    You are Jar Jar Binks and I claim my 5 UKP.

  55. Free for me, not for thee by Brandybuck · · Score: 1, Insightful

    It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

    What kind of fucking excuse is that? Is the editor insinuating that it's okay to censor and limit the speech of conservatives? That it's okay to say anything you want if you're a liberal, but if you're a conservative you should not have free speech?

    The new progressive definition of Free Speech: "the freedom to express any opinion you want, so long as it's a progressive opinion."

    --
    Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    1. Re:Free for me, not for thee by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      i think the 'excuse' is pointing out that the WND article might want to be taken with a grain of salt.

      i mean, if there was an article in Socialist Worker complaining about an anti-bush video being 'censored' on youtube, i'd expect a similar caveat as well on a /. story about it.

      quit it with the conservative persecution complex. it was old 5 years ago.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    2. Re:Free for me, not for thee by Banner · · Score: 1

      Welcome to Slashdot!

    3. Re:Free for me, not for thee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit. Fuck you, troll. The fact that the source has a conservative bias is directly relevant to the content of the post. If the post had been about how a movie with a liberal bias had been 'censored' and reported in a notoriously liberal blog, it would be appropriate to comment on the partisan bias of the blog because it informs the user that while the blog may be factual it may also be hyping a non-issue or misreporting facts to further a partisan agenda. Which, as it turns out, is exactly what WorldNetDaily has done.

    4. Re:Free for me, not for thee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When was the last time you same a liberal site flagged as such here?

      It may be old, but apparently it's still true.

    5. Re:Free for me, not for thee by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      i've never seen a socialist worker article used in a /. story, or something similar in the same vein as WND.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    6. Re:Free for me, not for thee by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      i mean, if there was an article in Socialist Worker complaining about an anti-bush video being 'censored' on youtube, i'd expect a similar caveat as well on a /. story about it.

      Actually, if it were a "mainstream" liberal organization complaining about it, slashdot would never have bothered posting it.

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  56. Facts and Opinions by virg_mattes · · Score: 1

    Take the facts you reported, that WND also reported:

    1.) YouTube limited access to a video because of users flagging it.
    2.) YouTube determined the flagging to be incorrect and removed it.
    3.) WND reported on this fact.


    Now, from this, they derive the opinion that YouTube (not YouTube users, but the company itself) is censoring content, despite the fact that the article itself states that YouTube removed the flag on review. That's where they went off the rails, and thus where being a reputable news source fell aside to conservative bias.

    Virg

  57. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by faloi · · Score: 1

    I'm willing to bet that getting it posted on Slashdot got far more PR for both WorldNetDaily AND the movie than anything done on their site alone would've.

    --
    "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
  58. Re:So? ...What by Tuna_Shooter · · Score: 1

    " Yes, marking that video as inappropriate is terrible. How can a lecture by a nobel prize winner be inappropriate?" I have had the unfortunate experience of listening to a lecture by Jimmy Carter. !!!! Not inappropriate but dam boring as hell !!!!

    --
    *--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
  59. Tyrany of the Majority by xzvf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The censorship comes from the culture of the users at YouTube. It works the same way in real life verifying the importance of the 1st amenendment. Movies that draw full theaters in NY and LA bomb when released nation wide. Pro-Abortion activists have poor results speaking in southern towns. Bush avoids the NAACP convention, Clinton avoids predominately white churches. While I don't use youtube, I suspect the audience is not friendly to content they don't agree with. I suspect Google and YouTube want everyone to participate, but like slashdot unpopular opinions get shouted down.

    1. Re:Tyrany of the Majority by geoffspear · · Score: 1

      Unlike Slashdot, there is no tyranny of the majority on YouTube.

      A "censored" comment on Slashdot, moderated down by one side of the debate, is only uncensored by the other side doing a majority of the moderations afterwards. If a majority of moderators want to suppress certain speech, there's nothing the minority can do about it.

      On YouTube, "moderation" only works in one direction and a tiny minority can "censor" content at any time, but if the "censoring" is found to be unfair (as the content is not actually objectionable, just unpopular with certain users), the "censoring" is completely undone and won't be repeated.

      Opinions may vary on whether having all-powerful employees on the site deciding what shouldn't be susceptible to censorship is better or worse than Slashdot's more closely democratic system (although obviously Slashdot isn't entirely democratic; not everyone gets mod points and the site's staff can still censor whatever they want, even if they mostly don't choose to do so), but YouTube certainly doesn't suffer from what you object to.

      --
      Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
    2. Re:Tyrany of the Majority by dominion · · Score: 1


      Pro-Abortion activists? Please.

      I see more women with children at pro-choice marches than I do at pro-life marches.

    3. Re:Tyrany of the Majority by oyenstikker · · Score: 1

      What exactly are you trying to say?

      --
      The masses are the crack whores of religion.
    4. Re:Tyrany of the Majority by xzvf · · Score: 1

      I've shown my bias. I prefer the terms pro- and anti-abortion to pro-choice and pro-life. I dislike it when people try to spin language to obsure issues. While there is some truth to the preferred titles, they broaden what should be a narrow issue and make it difficult to discuss issues like stem cell research without dropping into dogma.

  60. Reread the article by Arathon · · Score: 1

    If you read carefully, you will notice that the video was actually censored AFTER having been flagged, and the only way it can be censored is by a YouTube employee. So...their facts about what happened are quite correct - YouTube did indeed censor the video for a period of time.

    1. Re:Reread the article by El+Torico · · Score: 2, Informative
      I went back and carefully read the article again; please note this in the article,

      "However, after a brief period of accessibility, the verification page started appearing on YouTube. It asked that: "This video may contain content that is inappropriate for some users, as flagged by YouTube's user community. To view this video, please verify you are 18 or older by logging in or signing up." Today the verification page on the spoof was removed."

      I then checked the YouTube Terms of Use; please note Item C below,

      C. In connection with User Submissions, you further agree that you will not: (i) submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant YouTube all of the license rights granted herein; (ii) publish falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage YouTube or any third party; (iii) submit material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, violate any law, or is otherwise inappropriate; (iv) post advertisements or solicitations of business: (v) impersonate another person.

      Currently, you can readily view the video in question without having to assert that you are over 18. It is most likely that someone objected, YouTube placed the restriction, and then removed it after reviewing the content. So after careful review, I stand by my original assertion about WorldNetDaily, but I agree that YouTube did temporarily censor the video in accordance with their policy.

      --
      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
    2. Re:Reread the article by ksheff · · Score: 1

      The article mentioned a change in the "flagging" policy, but didn't say what the change was. Anyone know what this change was?

      --
      the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
  61. Wrong again! you must be a conservative! by tinkerton · · Score: 1

    Liberalism is only right 85 to 90 percent of the time.
    Oh, and management of NYT tends to be rather conservative,
    and they lie too.

    (sound of cogs turning).

    Okay so I'm kidding. Not sure to what extent tho.

  62. She Had Anti-Jihad Videos on YouTube by geoffrobinson · · Score: 1

    I'm assuming a bunch of pro-jihad people banded together and complained enough to get her anti-jihad videos removed from YouTube.

    --
    Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
  63. Thank you by Arathon · · Score: 1

    Just wanted to say thanks for an intelligent, if obviously conservative, attempt at real discussion.

    1. Re:Thank you by Americano · · Score: 1

      I agree, the grandparent post was thoughtful, lucid, and well-written. Unfortunately on Slashdot, those traits seem to be about as welcome as a fart in a space suit. :)

  64. last I checked by Pope · · Score: 1

    Clinton wasn't President. I guess that's irrelevant for political nitpickers.

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  65. World Net Daily by DrXym · · Score: 1
    Why are they bitching now, and not for example when Fox attempted to yank all of the interview clips when Clinton kicked their ass a few weeks back?

    Anyway, you can tell a lot about the readers of WND from the shit being peddled by the banner ads. Nuke alert keychains, gold investments, books trashing Islam, adopt a child for Jesus, send a bible to China etc. I had to laugh at this Google ad though - "Grow A+ brain in 30 days ... Proven on CNN, NBC Today, CBS This Morning "

  66. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring by 0xABADC0DA · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It's not just that they are dishonest by spinning this video situation, they are also ignoring the countless examples of Republican censorship. For example, several months ago Dean wanted to put up a billboard with no profanity, which essentially just said "We want you to focus on Iraq, Senator X". The DNC had a contract and had already payed for the billboard, but the Republican-owned media company saw the ad and said they didn't like it so they canceled the contract -- despite having put up much more extreme pro-republican billboards.

    To me this is far, far worse and it seems to me this company should start with something a little more serious than some spin video getting marked inappropriate by users.

  67. Re:Mod Parent up!! by hcob$ · · Score: 1
    It was already obvious from the summary that this looks like a typical convservative rant without subtstance. /. is becoming more like digg.
    Wow, spelling is terrible today... It's spelled POLITICAL
    --
    Cliff Claven
    K.E.G. Party Chairman
    Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
  68. YouTube can't "censor" by Evro · · Score: 1

    I realize this may seem pedantic but it's worth pointing out (again): censorship is restriction of speech by government actions. YouTube is under no obligation to host anything it doesn't want to. If YouTube decides it doesn't want any videos from Jews, well, that's their right as a private entity (a status which will change when Google acquires them).

    --
    rooooar
    1. Re:YouTube can't "censor" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I realize this may seem pedantic but it's worth pointing out (again): censorship is restriction of speech by government actions.

      Bullshit. Anyone can censor and everyone does censor in some way, probably every single day. There is absolutely no requirement that a government needs to be involved, except when dealing with legal issues related to protected speech, which is not the case here.

    2. Re:YouTube can't "censor" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      YouTube governs its own website, so in effect, they are a "government" who is restricting speech on their website.

  69. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    (Score:1, Flamebait)

    Help! Help! I'm being censored! (According to WorldNetDaily's definition of censorship, anyway)

    Now, hopefully the GGP has some idea of why we find WND's comments laughable. It's not that it's a conservative or liberal bias, it's that the bias prevents it from seeing the truth and reporting it in a way that leaves readers with a fair impression of what's going on.

    Yes, the fact that it's conservative biased is relevent here, and is a reason to ignore it. Not because of the direction of the bias, but because of the bias. Because of the framing. To describe truth, you need to be prepared to avoid an agenda. That doesn't mean you can't say that someone has committed an evil act simply because there's a political dimension, but it does mean that your words have to be appropriate. WND frequently fails that test. It leaves readers with a false impression, because it allows hyperbole to get the better of it. It shouldn't have had a link on Slashdot's front page.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  70. Irrelevant info? by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 1

    For those in this thread who claim there's something wrong with pointing out the source's demonstrated bias, please consider this thought experiment: if the folks who put up one of the 9/11 conspiracy "documentaries" started screaming bloody murder about how YouTube had censored their videos, would it be somehow illegitimate to note that they're conspiracy nuts? I don't think so, especially since that trait is relevantly related to the very charges they are making; that is, they are claiming their political messages are being unfairly suppressed by an authority they think is thereby exhibiting its own bias.

    Some people here are complaining about this because they say it will make people form (negative) presuppositions about the value of the information they're about to receive on the basis of presuppositions about the character of the source. I happen to think the idea underlying this criticism is wrong-headed. You should make presuppositions, you need to make presuppositions, and in all cases, you do make presuppositions whenever you're about to receive any information. The issue is not to eliminate them all (an infinite and impossible task), but to recognize them for what they are--namely, hypotheses--and treat them as such. (For me, that means to acknowledge them as shaping expectation and as open to revision.)

    --
    Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
  71. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by zimus · · Score: 2, Informative
    It means that the WorldNetDaily intentionally published a false, inflamatory story...
    You mean like USA Today, Boston Globe, CBS, NYTimes, the AP, Reuters, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch (just to name a few) do?
    --
    Is your terror cell living in terror? Is your safe-house not so safe? If so, read the New York Times, the jihad journal.
  72. censorship is the wrong term... by scheming+daemons · · Score: 1
    The first amendment only protects individuals from censorship by the government. Corporations/businesses/individuals can censor content all they want.

    The first amendment only guarantees that the US government cannot take action to silence speech.

    Whether you agree with YouTube or not... they are completely within their constitutional rights to remove any content that they please.

    You are guaranteed to say what you want... but no one (and no corporate entity) is under any obligation to give you a forum for your speech.

    --
    "I have as much authority as the pope, I just
    don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin

    1. Re:censorship is the wrong term... by Rotten168 · · Score: 1

      They certainly have that right... my point is that it's hypocritical to complain about censorship and then turn around and censor a post because politicall you disagree with it.

  73. Censoring is a Govm Thing . . . by Dausha · · Score: 4, Informative

    YouTube is not, in my mind at least, capable of censoring. YouTube is a private enterprise, not the Government. You have no First Amendment recourse against YouTube. As there is no recourse, there is no censoring.

    --
    What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
    1. Re:Censoring is a Govm Thing . . . by RexRhino · · Score: 1

      You are 100% correct. YouTube is not capble of censorship, since anyone who wants to can buy their own damn web server and serve video themselves. YouTube has no moral or legal obligation to play this video.

      That being said, if this wasn't a conservative video you would have Slashdotters up in arms about this.

    2. Re:Censoring is a Govm Thing . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      YouTube is not, in my mind at least, capable of censoring. YouTube is a private enterprise, not the Government. You have no First Amendment recourse against YouTube. As there is no recourse, there is no censoring.

      Violating the First Amendment is not a requirement for censorship. In fact, censorship can exist outside the US and even in the total absense of government. In fact, I did it right now to myself by posting anonymously. You seem to be indicating that censorship should only be of interest when it is of the illegal variety, in effect indicating support for censorship of discussions of censorship. See how it works? If you can convince enough people that only government censorship counts, then eventually discussion of other forms of censorship will be repressed. See the problem here? By ignoring the details of this case and using an inaccurate blanket statement to encourage others to do the same, you are only serving to make it easier for people to maintain their preconceived notions and ignore anything that might challenge their beliefs or expose them to new ideas. Instead of asking whether YouTube's actions are reasonable, you are stifling the debate, which allows extremists on all sides to walk away declaring victory. In the end, it's just another victory for ignorance.

    3. Re:Censoring is a Govm Thing . . . by noidentity · · Score: 1

      To further agree with your post, YouTube enables sharing of material in the first place; if you want to apply the term there, you might as well claim that they are censoring posting of JPEG images and mp3s too. Censorship applies to cases where public expression is suppressed by the government, in which you have no alternative. I believe the relevant word here is misrepresentation, and doing this dilutes the concept of censorship.

  74. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by oddfox · · Score: 1

    I guess we shouldn't inform people from now on that, hey, this news source might be a little more than biased. You want right-leaning bias, check out FOX News. You want in-your-face political agenda pushing, check out WND. This article should have never made it to the front page, especially if the people are too stupid to figure out how YouTube works. Nothing was censored here.

    --
    "We invented personal computing." - Bill Gates
  75. Corporation's bane: Liability by abb3w · · Score: 1

    Youtube is a "private" site. It can, and obviously will, censor whatever the hell it will.

    Almost. The problem dates back to the Stratton v. Prodigy and Cubby v. Compuserve cases. Increasing censorship of content indicates increased control over content, and was ruled as changing the legal status of the entity from a content distributor, to a content publisher, and thus making them much more liable for anything in the content. This court ruling was later modified by 47 USC 230 (one of the few parts of the CDA that survived the SCOTUS's glare), which says that no "interactive computer service" may be considered the publisher of any content provided by someone else; and that action in good faith to restrict access to objectionable material can't make them civilly liable for anything.

    The problem is that selectively censoring only one set of political opinions might make either a judge or jury very skeptical about the "good faith", weakening a critical legal protection. This doesn't make it illegal... just very, very risky.

    IAmNotALawyer. I suspect this is reason for anyone planning to do some censorship to talk over the matter with their lawyer.

    --
    //Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
  76. objectionable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    but contains no profanity, nudity or other factors generally thought objectionable

    If you filter out content based on profanity, isn't that also censorship?

    What is objectionable in one person's opinion is just entertaining in another person's opinion.

    Obviously, someone found the political mockery to be objectionable. So they censored it, just like they censor out the nekkid breasts.

    What I am getting at is this: youTube has always practiced censorship, and we have always been okay with it. Someone is just upsed over what, specifically, is being censored.

    1. Re:objectionable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      If you filter out content based on profanity, isn't that also censorship?

      What is objectionable in one person's opinion is just entertaining in another person's opinion.


      Yeah, I generally prefer to filter out content that doesn't contain profanity and nudity.

    2. Re:objectionable? by gbulmash · · Score: 3, Informative
      If you filter out content based on profanity, isn't that also censorship?

      First, censoring is more than just putting up a warning that the content might not be suitable for certain viewers, which is all YouTube did, according to TFA.

      Second, also according to TFA, the warning was automatically added once someone offended by the content flagged it as offensive. The warning wasn't permanent, but was just tacked on until YouTube could have a real person review the video to check if it was accurately flagged. Once reviewed, the warning could removed, left in place, or the video could be deleted.

      When I just went to watch, there was no warning. This means either the video got to the head of the review queue by normal processes and was determined to have been improperly flagged, or the tempest in a teapot got it jumped to the head of the queue where the determination was made.

      As for users flagging it as offensive... I made a political joke in one post at Slashdot and had so many people hitting it with downmods and upmods, I lost my posting privileges for three weeks (a "timeout") for getting too many downmods in a specific time period (almost all from that ONE post). So it's VERY believable that enough left-leaning people would flag such a video as offensive as to trip whatever limit was needed to get the warning placed. I'm also sure something equally offensive to right-leaning people would be equally flagged.

      But in the long run, the warning gets on, the video goes into a reviewing queue, and a human at YouTube eventually reviews it. But with the size of their staff, the size of their traffic, and the potential number of videos getting flagged daily, it's highly probable that they'd take a couple of days for it to reach the top of the queue.

      Seems that this is more a deliberate publicity ploy. By fooling people who don't actually pay close attention to the facts, they made it sound like the video was unfairly censored by YouTube itself (or its staff) as opposed to going through a standard process. Then those people, with a sense of moral outrage, tell everyone they know... getting the video hundreds of thousands of future viewings.

      - Greg
    3. Re:objectionable? by IdleTime · · Score: 1

      Censoring tits but overflows in real killings.

      USA is indeed a strange country!

      --
      If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
  77. I hate it.. by tinkerton · · Score: 1

    when people summarize the situation nicely thereby making all further discussion redundant.

  78. what about soldiers-snuff videos? by peter303 · · Score: 1

    I heard that videos of soldiers being killed are being copied from anti-US propaganda sites to general US video sites (although I have not tried to verify this). Should somthing like this "be allowed" or censored. This isnt a clearly defined legal boundary like underage sex videos. I dont have a firm opinion on this yet.

    1. Re:what about soldiers-snuff videos? by PhxBlue · · Score: 1

      It's just nudity people don't want to see in the U.S. Graphic violence is fine (as long as it's not a video game).

      --
      !#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
  79. Caveat Emptor by tjw · · Score: 1
    You will save the post as a "to remember"?

    That was a bona fide use of "memento". The grandparent was simply making the de facto statement that using Latin in modern language is still the status quo and he used the word ad hoc.

    You are Jar Jar Binks and I claim my 5 UKP.

    Is that an ad hominem attack per se?

    --

    XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-UB E-TEST-EMAIL*C.34X
  80. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by Hezqiyahu · · Score: 1

    "Toe a liberal party line"

    Is this a reference to the toe-sucking scandle involving Dick Morris? Funny if it is...

  81. Inequitable moderation (double standard) by @madeus · · Score: 1

    Apparently it's is flamebait to point out someone is entirely in error because they didn't check out the story (YouTube staff didn't actually censor the content at all - as it says in TFA, which apparently no one has read).

    At the same time, it's not flamebait for the OP to say (falsely) that it was flagged by staff YouTube and then post about how, as a conservative he was angry about this terrible thing (even though that thing didn't happen because the allegation was of course, not true).

    Indeed.

  82. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by Phillip+Birmingham · · Score: 1

    So, unless someone toes a liberal party line their opinion has no value?

    Works for me!

    I kid, I kid...

    Seriously, though, if WorldNutDaily said that the sun was up, I'd look to make sure. Occasionally they make sense, but usually they're just a cog in the conservative culture of complaint.

    --
    Make me aerodynamic in the evening air
  83. Thoughts from Youtube watcher by dantheman82 · · Score: 1

    Well, flagging a video is very easy in Youtube no matter what the content. Mark as inappropriate (and tell your friends to do the same), and it will likely soon after be flagged for 18+ audiences. Perhaps if it is politically extreme (or pornographic, etc.) for the few who end up moderating the videos, then they will be removed.

    There's no way YouTube or Google could track that many videos as thousands are probably marked inappropriate each day. Even some of the most popular Google Videos (top 20) shoot to the top despite bordering on pornography (or perhaps because they are), before someone removes it from the listing (except for those who opt to turn off SafeSearch presumably).

    Youtube has turned into a dumping ground for everything, and the extreme or titillating have a tendency to filter their way to the top of the list...

    --
    This sig donated to Pater. Long live /.
  84. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by vertinox · · Score: 1

    So, unless someone toes a liberal party line their opinion has no value?

    As they say... The facts have a liberal bias.

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
  85. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    It was a joke, because "Wing Nut Daily" is a joke, as it exists as entertainment for the people who believe there is such a thing as the "liberal party line".

    Your political identity is a not a religion, it does not make you a minority, you should not expect it to be protected from ridicule. Since you read a pejorative into the word "conservative", what context makes this simple statement of fact offensive by the addition of "just wee bit"? Does it denote persecution, resentment, or just mere contempt for the inferior? How did you infer that Hemos's intention is to flame?

  86. Misleading text by crazdgamer · · Score: 1
    TFA:
    In the past [Google] has produced "President Bush" when searchers hunt for "miserable failure." And a Google search for "liar" produced as the top choice a site for a biography for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a close ally with President Bush in the war on terror.
    Google is not responsible for that; the people of the interwebs (who most likely share that opinion) are.

    Google bomb FTW.
  87. Actually... by artemis67 · · Score: 1

    Slashdot was late to the game. It's already been posted to Drudge and to the front page of Digg.

  88. It is scrubbing for Google merger. by funwithBSD · · Score: 3, Informative
    Disclaimer: I vote my way, that tends to be conservative, but I have voted for Democrats in the past, such as Clinton in 1992.

    They have banned several Conservative video makers, including Michelle Malkin and HotAir. They have done so recently, despite carrying the videos for over a year without any issues.

    Now, Google, the company that bought them, has refused to carry Michelle, LFG, and others as NEWS sites based on the fact that they blog, not present new news. Here are the letters from Google:


    Hi Michelle,

    Thank you for your note. We have reviewed www.michellemalkin.com but cannot include it in Google News at this time. We do not include news-related blogs or other news-related sites that are written and maintained by a single individual. Similarly, we do not include sites that do not have a formal editorial review process. We appreciate your taking the time to contact us and will log your site for consideration should our requirements change.

    Regards,
    The Google Team

    And LGF:


    Hi Charles,

    Thank you for your note. We reviewed http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog and cannot include it in Google News at this time. We do not include sites that are purely news aggregators, and we were not able to find any stories on your site that were not from outside sources.

    We will log your site for consideration should we alter our policy. Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

    Regards,
    The Google Team


    BUT they allow several other blogs to be indexed as news, as Charles from LGF points out:


    Note that the Google News index now searches quite a few blogs (including Power Line, Polipundit, and Wonkette) and includes other sites with, to say the least, serious credibility problems (including hard-core anarchist site Infoshop, and Justin Raimondo's paleocon antisemitic site antiwar.com). In this context, Google's reply to me seems rather odd.


    Other sites of questionable news worthyness but indexed as news: Democratic Underground, Uruknet.info, and Dailykos.

    Now if you want to hold yourself out as a "News" indexing service that only indexes news and claim no bias, you have serious issues. Lets point out that Google donates almost exclusively to Democrat candidates and causes and you have a clear bias.

    A clear bias when you claim to have none is a problem

    I am resonably convinced, barring YouTube or Google coming out and saying it, that they scrubbed the videos as part of the merger deal. As in, no scrub, no deal.

    Source for above info: http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001431.htm . Yes yes, she is involved and has an axe to grind, but she also puts together the facts nicely.
    --
    Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    1. Re:It is scrubbing for Google merger. by xeno-cat · · Score: 1

      The dailykos and Democratic Underground have a public editorial review process with many authors, meeting googles guidelines.

      -pax

      --
      "A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
    2. Re:It is scrubbing for Google merger. by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      I don't see an editorial process for DailyKos, it is Kos's opinons and a bunch of blogs with comments. I looked over the website, it does not show an editorial process mentioned. I am fairly sure Kos breaks news stories as well.

      If that is the case, then the objections for LGF falls flat. They do break new stories, for example the AP photoshopping and the exposing the forging of Bush National Guard documents.

      There have been others, but those are the two big ones.

      MM address's this in her post that I linked:

      Something's definitely screwy. In my letter, Google News said "we do not include sites that do not have a formal editorial review process." Is the presumption that group blogs have a formal editorial review process because they are run by more than one person, but that an individual blog is incapable of satisfactory self-editing? If an individual blog does investigative reporting or publishes original documents, as LGF has done and as this blog occasionally does, is the "formal editorial review process" requirement waived?

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    3. Re:It is scrubbing for Google merger. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google's motto is "Do No Evil"

      By scrubbing out conservative view points (whether this is true or not) they're fulfilling their motto.

      'Nuff said.

    4. Re:It is scrubbing for Google merger. by xeno-cat · · Score: 1

      Dailykos uses Scoop (http://scoop.kuro5hin.org/), which has an open, well defined editorial process.

      What google is trying to avoid is individual soap-box reporting. MM hang's herself with:

      "Is the presumption that group blogs have a formal editorial review process because they are run by more than one person, but that an individual blog is incapable of satisfactory self-editing?"

      The answer is, yes. Case closed.

      -pax

      --
      "A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
    5. Re:It is scrubbing for Google merger. by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      Where is this editorial process for Daily Kos? Can you point me to it?

      Seems like the rank and file don't have it, I have an account there and I cannot submit or vote for articles like I can on K5.

      Is it limited to subscribers?

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    6. Re:It is scrubbing for Google merger. by sethstorm · · Score: 1


      They have banned several Conservative video makers, including Michelle Malkin and HotAir. They have done so recently, despite carrying the videos for over a year without any issues.

      Now, Google, the company that bought them, has refused to carry Michelle, LGF, and others as NEWS sites based on the fact that they blog, not present new news. Here are the letters from Google:


      If you look at the sites, Michelle Malkin/Hotair (comments disabled on YouTube, or not present on the personal blog), the LGF (The IDF Echo Chamber, where commments and users of any real opposition somehow "disappear"), and Willisms (which has started to go their route) are just angry that they're silenced. This is what happens when their "opposition" gets someone large enough to finally silence them.

      --
      Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
    7. Re:It is scrubbing for Google merger. by xeno-cat · · Score: 1

      "Is it limited to subscribers?"

      No. It's limited to people who care to make a real investment.

      From the FAQ (if you want more info, you can ask them):

      Parts of daily kos

      This section of the FAQ gives an overview of the different components of the dkos environment. More detailed information on these components is given in the next section on Contributing to daily kos.
      [edit]
      The front page

      The first thing that you see when loading Daily Kos is the front page. Most of the stories on the front page are written either by kos or by a small set of people designated by kos as front page posters. Currently, there are approximately half a dozen front page posters at any given time, serving one-year terms.

      Diaries

      Most of the action takes place inside of diaries. These are written by users, and then read and commented on by other users. Diaries can be found in three places. Most diaries appear in the Recent Diary list on the right-hand side of the screen. By default, this shows the last 20 diaries that have been posted; this can be reset as high as 50 diaries using the field at the bottom of the list. People reading diaries can recommend them (see below). If a diary receives enough recommendations, it will automatically be promoted to the Recommended Diary list, which sits above the Recent Diary list. Recommended diaries tend to attract a wider audience and more comments than most diaries. The length of time that a diary spends on the Recommended list depends on how many users recommend it; it can vary from a few minutes to more than one full day. Diaries moving to the Recommended list is a democratic process; the diaries on the list are the ones that received the most "votes" to be there. The third, and most prominent, place to find diaries is the front page of the site. These are the articles that are seen when going to www.dailykos.com. Front-page stories have two sources. First are diary entries written by kos, or by one of the half-dozen or so people that kos has given front-page privileges to. In addition to writing their own diaries, kos and the other front-pagers often promote interesting diaries from the Recent list to the front page. These promotions are at the discretion of the front-pagers, unlike the voting process which governs promotion to the Recommended list.

      Comments

      Inside diaries and front page posts, users can post comments. Generally, these comments are in response to something in the diary, or are responding to other comments. Next to the title of each comment are two numbers inside a set of parentheses. These numbers are the number of people who have recommended and troll-rated the comment respectively (see #Rating_comments).

      Comments can be shown in expanded form (showing subject, author and text) or shrunken form (just the subject and author); clicking the small triangle to the left of the subject line toggles between the two forms. An useful shortcut is the ability to expand or shrink an entire subthread at once. Simply hold down the control key (on Windows/Linux, or the Command key on Mac) while you click on a triangle. The comment and all its replies will be expanded or shrunk. In between the diary text and the comments, there are a set of buttons which will Expand, Shrink, or Hide (completely hide) all of the comments in the diary. If you select the 'Always' checkbox after clicking one of these buttons, your user preferences will be set to default to that comment display type.

      With AutoRefresh selected, the comments list periodically refreshes (without having to manually hit the 'Reload' button). When new comments come in, a little panel slides up in the lower right-hand corner offering links that scroll to view them. Comments that are marked as 'new replies' are replies to comments that you have made; all other comments are marked 'new comments'

      User Pages

      Every user has a User Page. There is a link to this page in the menu sidebar. The User Page contains a collection of links gathering all of the diaries and all of the comments written by that user. The 'My Profile' tab on that page is the place to change all of your preferences.

      --
      "A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
  89. Read what you reply to by Neo_piper · · Score: 1

    Did you even bother read the parent post before Replying with your uninformed opinion?
    It dosn't look like it so lets go over the main points together, Ok.

    It's not YouTube
    I REALLY think this bit speeks for itself but it seems I to need to point it out to you.

    it's people flagging the video as inappropriate. That causes the restriction to be put on
    If you had EVER gone to YouTube.com you would see that under each video are 5 links "Save to Favorites", "Add to Groups", "Share Video", "Blog Video" and "Flag as Inappropriate" Now if anyone dosn't like a video they can just click the last link and it will be "Flagged" putting a warning screen in before loading the video page and alerting the YouTube.com staff to it, letting them make a decision from an objective point of view.
    they[YouTube] immediately removed the warning Now Here Is where you really baffle me.
    In a 38 word post you completely skip over more than a THIRD of it as made obvious with the comment Disappointing indeed that the "flagged" content wasn't reviewed by YouTube and simply left be
    Disappointing indeed that a slashdot reader can't even be bothered to read and understand 38 words in a row...
    In conclusion sir
    You Fail

  90. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    This isn't a question of republicans vs democrats. It's a question of "is YOUTUBE censoring material based on political lines". What some other company may have done is irrelevant. If you want to talk about censorship in general based on political lines, I find that left wing censorship is much more prevalent, especially in universities/colleges, but that also is irrelevant to the topic of discussion. I would have simply modded you off-topic, but I can't since I already posted a comment in this thread earlier.

  91. Hello Kettle... by buckysphere · · Score: 1

    Since when does /. care about censorship? Are you f'n kidding me? Talk about the Pot calling the Kettle "Black"...or "Troll" in this case! Give me a frickin break and find some integrity!

  92. So Sick of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    God, this place is starting to read like a Yahoo news group.

    The right wing nut jobs who are labeled "conservative" are anything but. They are right wing nut jobs.
    The left wing nut jobs who are labeled "liberal" are anything but. They are left wing nut jobs.

    Conservative and liberal. Why do you keep using those words; I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

    Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick, I used to come here to get away from that crap. It's like when so called conservatives write in and complain in "Scientific American" about the magazine's "liberal bias", what with presenting the current scientific state of understanding about some issue that has been politicized.

    Leave your politics and religion at the door, thank you. You can pick them up on your way out.

    WTF happened to the U.S in the last 10 years? Sure, there's backwards moves all the time. But this was a stampede. I mean, I realize that stupidity, instant gratification, rudeness, and amorality has become all the rage but give me a break, a little reflective thought and consider STFU as a valid course of actrion.

  93. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring by cptgrudge · · Score: 1

    but the Republican-owned media company saw the ad and said they didn't like it so they canceled the contract -- despite having put up much more extreme pro-republican billboards.

    So they should have been forced to put up a billboard of something that they didn't agree with? Do billboard companies qualify as a similar media channel to radio and tv stations, in that they must allow equal time for political parties? They don't use a chunk of the public spectrum, but they might have a use contract with governments for the land next to roads? I'm not sure, but if so, then what they did is wrong. But if it's a private company without these requirements, they might not be forced to put these advertisements on their billboards. It isn't cool, but it wouldn't be illegal.

    If there are no other billboard companies in town that have close to the same reach to the audience as the one they tried initially, then maybe there are some serious anti-trust issues they should look into.

    --
    Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
  94. Reality and fantasy... by rtechie · · Score: 1

    WorldNetDaily, a far-right conservative web site, is basically complaing that a bunch of "liberal" users flagged this video inappropriate so the "18 and over" interstital was added, requiring users to sign in to see the video. It was NEVER removed from the YouTube. Eventually, after A DAY OR TWO the video was reviewed by someone on the tiny YouTube staff and the "18 and over" interstital was removed.

    The context here is that WorldNetDaily, and other conservative blogs and sites, have been complaining for months that while anti-Muslim/white power propoganda ("death to ragheads", "Islam = Satanism", etc.) has consistently been taken down for being offensive, jihadi propoganda has often remained on the site. They don't claim that the jihadis are responsible, but "liberals" in the United States and Europe are somehow "supporting the terrorists".

    More sane people realize that calling people "devils" and "ragheads" is inappropriate and offensive. Jihadi propoganda is often newsworthy, showing attacks on Western forces for example, and because it isn't often see in the USA it has legitimate news value. To see anti-Islam propoganda you onloy have to turn on Fox News.

    Personally, I don't think that the anti-Muslim/white power propoganda should be censored. It only makes it's creators look bad, much like Holocaust denial.

  95. Why did "liberal" become an insult? I'll tell you. by raddan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Slashdot is now entering the field of discriminating against conservative news sources by tagging them as such.

    It's called context, shit-for-brains. It's like if some pro-alien-invasion newspaper said that NASA was hiding information about aliens. You would think differently about it if the Wall St. Journal said the same, thing, no? It's still up to the reader to decide if the information is reputable or not. You'll notice that the editor's comment simply says that the article comes from a periodical that is a "wee bit conservative", not that it is conservative trash (which it is). Nor did they outright reject the story submission, which I suppose you could spin as "censorship".

    Fact is, the conservative press has pounded this idea into the heads of conservatives that the "mainstream press", which is arguably conservative itself, censors and distorts the truth in favor of "the liberals". This is a fabrication in order to make sure you get your news from the vetted talking heads-- the channels and conservative talkers who stick to the party-line. You sure as shit don't hear much anymore from the traditional (fiscal-responbility, states' rights, and so on) conservatives anymore, do you? That's because they don't stick to the Republican party-line.

    If anyone should be accused of discriminating against sources it's Fox News, which screams "liberal!" (like you) any time someone disagrees with them, like it's a crime to have a different opinion.

  96. Please comment, I need to know by Britz · · Score: 1

    For some reason that I do not know (please comment) there is a fairly large number of internet blogs that spin certain things the way the GOP leaderhip would like them. (By Spin I mean this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations#Spin )

    This is not some conspiracy. Those people are all individuals acting by themselves (and setting up networks, but decentralized networks that nobody stears).

    And those people are not even the super wealthy that actually benefit. They are mostly ordinary citizen. Why would they do this? Many of them also claim that the "main stream media" (they use the term MSM) conspire against conservative America. I know that there are also liberal webpages that spin a lot of things. And when you watch Fahrenheit 9/11 you get dizzy from all the spin (and then I read "counterspin" the next day in some of those conservative blogs, what the hell?). But Michael Moore gets a lot of money. Those conservative bloggers don't. And they put a huge amount of work into it. What motivates those people? After all the only people that benefit from the war in Iraq are the large stockholders that own Boeing, Haliburton and the likes. The rest pays for it in taxes.

    If you want to look up the pages I am talking about just click yourself through the links WorldNetDaily provides on their page.

    1. Re:Please comment, I need to know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After all the only people that benefit from the war in Iraq are the large stockholders that own Boeing,

      You forgot (or won't ackknowledge) the 25 million human beings in Iraq liberated from Saddam's totalitarian police state.

      And that's why conservative bloggers exert so much effort with such little enumeration - to counter the lies of self-appointed know-it-alls in the MSM.

    2. Re:Please comment, I need to know by Banner · · Score: 1
      Why do they do it? Because people like you make statements like this:

      After all the only people that benefit from the war in Iraq are the large stockholders that own Boeing, Haliburton and the likes.


      A totally fictional and completely bogus statement. Yet I'm sure you believe it to be true not realizing you've been lied to. You think it's all about people making money, it's not.

      I would suggest you do some independent investigation, maybe start off by reading 'The road to Serfdom'. There is a large gap in your education apparently when it comes to conservatives.
  97. YouTube accused in the UK too... by shic · · Score: 1

    Here a video of Labour MPs attacking the leader of the opposition. A significant own-goal, I suspect, as what they were parodying would likely have remained in obscurity otherwise.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6048202.stm

  98. About the People Censoring... by Khammurabi · · Score: 1
    The best part is that the article explains in detail how the flagging process and review that got it unflagged works, and then goes on to blame the liberals at Google for the users of youtube flagging content.
    Which begs the question of who actually was flagging the content. How do you know it wasn't Karl Rove and his republican cadre doing it on purpose to stir up some negative press for liberals?

    It seems rather naive to think that a site like YouTube can't be manipulated for all sorts of political gains. I'd definitely file "misdirection" as one of the skilled politician's most oft' used tactics. (Republican or Democrat alike.)
  99. Bullshit. We can bribe NK, or we can bomb them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    The US really doesn't have any signficant trade with North Korea, so we have no influence short of sending them things. That was Clinton's approach - it's called bribing them, which just gives them even more incentive to misbehave.

    The only other thing the US could do to North Korea is direct military attack. We haven't reached that point - yet. And I suspect most folks hope we never do.

    Without economic ties, we have no other way to influence them.

    Which is why talks direct between only the US and North Korea are a huge mistake - as the results of Clinton's policy prove. If North Korea were to backstab the US again, once again we couldn't do anything about it short of going to war.

    So repeat after me - direct talks between only the US and North Korea are a trap.

    If you don't think so, why don't you post some things the US could do to influence North Korea that don't amount to giving them something (food, oil, technology) for nothing more than mere promises of future good behavoir. And even if you do pull something out of your ass and come up with something, then you have to come up with a US reply to more North Korean duplicity that doesn't involve more bribery or open warfare.

    Because they've lied before, and continuing to try and bribe them just gives them more incentive to keep lying.

    Say it again - direct talks between only the US and North Korea are a trap

    The only ones with signficant influence over North Korean behavoir are South Korea and China, because those are the only countries with significant economic ties to North Korea. And because Seoul and all its 15 million people and significant portion of the South Korean economy is entirely located less than 50 kilometers or so from North Korea and within easy striking range of the North Korean army, South Korea's population and economy is pretty much held hostage by North Korean threats of military action.

    So that leaves China.

    And China's been all too happy to allow North Korea to prick away at the US - with lots of help from useful idiots here in the US doing stupid things like calling for direct US-North Korean talks and thus undermining the US and the only process that could actually keep North Korea from going even crazier.

    But once North Korea actually got right up to the nuclear threshold, China changed their signals to North Korea significantly. Why? Because a nuclear North Korea means a nuclear Japan that would tie its security even closer the the US.

    Which would seriously diminish the ability of the Chinese to dominate eastern Asia.

    So North Korea won't behave until China makes them, and China won't do that until Japan makes a serious threat to go nuclear.

    And there's not a whole helluva lot the US can do about it, despite the pie-in-the-sky fantasies of Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Madeleine Albright and their supporters.

  100. You are too blind to see Clinton fell into a trap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No matter what the US gives to North Korea, they can always renege on it and start making nukes.

    Just like they've done already. What you call "progress" is nothing more giving toys to dictators with only the hope they'll behave in the future.

  101. Forget the article look at the empirical evidence by Neo_piper · · Score: 1

    The video seems to be there and I had no problems finding it.
    In fact there are, at this time, three (3) copies on the site none of them flagged
    That really dosn't fit my definition of censored but perhaps you could lend me your copy of the "Rightwing Ditto Head Dictonary" and clear things up...

    Ass

  102. nothing, but liberals can't admit that. by Banner · · Score: 1

    short answer: Yup.

    Just look at the responses to your comment. Just look at the comments and moderation on this whole thread. Look at the number of Bush bashing links in the sigs of the people saying this is BS.

    YouTube didn't exactly censor the video, they did however make it harder to see. They have however completely censored people like Malkin and other conservative pundits. Meanwhile assassination video's of the President are just fine and dandy.

    This article points out facts, but they're not facts the liberals like, so of course they must be buried and attacked. Remember, presenting both sides of the story is considered to be a conservative trait and must be lambasted by liberals everywhere. (Note that FoxNews is called a 'conservative network' even though they're not, they just make an effort to show both sides - a crime to many liberals these days).

    YouTube censors. They have the right to do it, but the fact remains that they do it. So does Google. They both censor conservative opinions rather heavily. Pretending otherwise just shows that you've either no touch with reality, or that you've become so partisan yourself that you can't admit the truth anymore. And why are so many web surfers liberal? Because who else has time to spend all day online? College students, who are constantly hearing only one side of any story in school these days. And who have learned from their professors that stifling debate is better than participating in it.

  103. And... by iceperson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Others have a RIGHT to point out when they believe that a site like YouTube is stiffling speach from conservative sources just like the left likes to point out that FOX news tends to omit things presented by the left. That's how the free market works. Maybe it will be in YouTube's best interest for anyone who's not a liberal to realize they're not a valued member of YouTube's community and to leave so that YouTube can officially pigeonhole itself as another intolerant liberal website that competes with MoveOn.org for traffic.

  104. Where it comes from by snowwrestler · · Score: 1

    Conservatives are more often the target of ad hominem or source-based dismissals but that did not come out of thin air. In 6 years of straight conservative Republican rule we've seen an unprecedented attack on objective, fact-based discussion and governance. From teaching biology to studying the Earth to our own intelligence services, there has been a clear trend. I mean, it's strong enough to have generated a hit show dedicated solely to mocking it out, and a whole new word.

    Liberal sources do it too but the fact of the matter is that when they do it, it is powerless and meek. But there's something about having it rammed down our throat by our government that over-sensitizes even moderates.

    It's like conservatives want things both ways--they want to be in total power, but they also want the victim's position of being unfairly targetted and discriminated against. Sorry, life is not fair. When you're running the show you're going to garner more attention. If you want the victims' empowerment you have to first be an actual victim.

    --
    Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  105. Not that I totally disagree, but... by TamMan2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's Clintons legacy. He bribed North Korea into pretending to be nice

    Do you have a better idea? Do you propose restarting the war? What stick could be wielded (as opposed to the carrot)?

    he bombed Iraq without accomplishing anything other than expending the US cruise missile arsenal and killing lots of innocent people

    Are you kidding? He kept Saddam nuetered. The Clinton enforced no fly zones (enforced by the bombings you speak of) allowed the formation of an independant kurdish government, the very same kurds that were slaughtered by Saddam... Saddam's military was worthless (see pre-insurgency military results in spring of 2003) largely because of Desert Fox and the sanctions.

    he ignored the terrorism problem which became apparent after the 1993 WTC attack and the USS Cole bombing

    He was far from ignoring the problem, he just understands (as everyone should now, after the WMD fiasco) that intelligence is not infoulable, and he therefor set the bar high for evidence deemed necissary to justify a military responce. Not striking at Bin Laden was the result of lack of appropriote opportunity, rather than ignorance. And while I realize that you are not supportin gBush in your post, I feel I should point out that prior to 9/11 Bush was doind far less about terrorism than Clinton was doing.

    he destroyed Serbia while aiding a well known terrorist organization (the KLA)

    I am no fan of this.

    In other words, he wielded both military and economic might in a totally incompetent fashion, accomplishing nothing other than wasting money and lives in an attempt to appear competent. I'm not a huge fan of Bush, but the guy has been demonized beyond any semblance of reality, while Clinton gets a free pass for his total incompetence. It's sad. At least the right wing in the US can laugh at Bush and point out his mistakes. I've yet to hear a democrat say anything bad about Clinton.

    Overall, I think you are being far too critical, and for the record, I am a democrat, and though I was too young to vote at the time of the Serbia action, I opposed it.

    --
    "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
    1. Re:Not that I totally disagree, but... by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      he ignored the terrorism problem which became apparent after the 1993 WTC attack and the USS Cole bombing

      He was far from ignoring the problem, he just understands (as everyone should now, after the WMD fiasco) that intelligence is not infoulable, and he therefor set the bar high for evidence deemed necissary to justify a military responce.


      not only that, clinton's administration caught and prosecuted those responsible for the 1993 WTC attack.

      as for the cole, it happened like 2 months before bush took over. clinton's administration drew up plans to invade afghanistan in response, but figured they didn't want to start a war a month or so before a new prez took over (similar to what happened when poppy bush handed over the mogadishu situation to clinton in 1992).

      clinton's administration also caught terrorists such as the millenium bomber etc. and made foreign terrorism a priority, having cabinet-level meetings to the point where they were accused of being 'obsessed' with bin laden.

      say what you want about the outcome, clinton didn't 'ignore' terrorism.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
    2. Re:Not that I totally disagree, but... by Raenex · · Score: 1
      Not striking at Bin Laden was the result of lack of appropriote opportunity, rather than ignorance.

      I guess that depends on what you call "appropriate". This CIA guy doesn't agree:

      http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20060704-1100 04-4280r.htm

      "Michael F. Scheuer, a 22-year veteran with the CIA, created and served as the chief of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit at the Counterterrorist Center."

    3. Re:Not that I totally disagree, but... by TamMan2000 · · Score: 1

      So...

      Micheal Scheuer and Richard Clark in a he said he said... Obviosly the one I have never heard of before who goes against the majority of reports is the one to believe. The fact that his work is published in the bastion of non-partisen reporting that is the washington times gives him more weight...

      If this opinion was some kind of consensus, rather than a lone voice in the wilderness, you would have something. But you can find one nutjob, even a nut job with relavent credentials, who supports every opinion out there.

      --
      "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
    4. Re:Not that I totally disagree, but... by Raenex · · Score: 1

      Well, who do you believe? The administration or the operatives? I'd like to listen to all the voices. Certainly the guy who headed up the unit whose whole mission was Osama deserves to be heard, and not dismissed as a nutjob.

    5. Re:Not that I totally disagree, but... by TamMan2000 · · Score: 1

      I didn't intend to come off as dismissive, it is just that he is the only person of any credibility I have heard with this opinion, and one opinion is not enough to sway me. If I hear more along these lines, I will start considering it more, but at this point, it is a trickle against a rushing river...

      Also, I think that operatives are often overinvested in their work, and can fail to look at intelligence objectively (usually this shows up in the form of overconfidence).

      --
      "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
  106. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by cje · · Score: 1

    It's not the direction that the compass is pointing in. It's the sheer distance of the object that it is pointing to.

    There's nothing wrong with being conservative. There is, however, plenty wrong with being extreme (regardless of which extreme end of the political spectrum you reside in). In this particular instance, WorldNetDaily has long been known as an extreme right-wing rag with very questionable credentials. These are the people who, post 9-11, suggested that U.S. soldiers should dip all of their bullets in pork lard and that we should taint the water supplies of major Muslim population centers with pig's blood. They're constantly putting out stories clearly aimed at Americans with -- well, let's just say "slightly lower than average IQs", such as ridiculous claims involving an Iranian superweapon that could take the entire U.S. "back to the Stone Age".

    If this is the reality that you live in, then you have no right to complain when people question your ability to accurately represent something that is anywhere near reality. I pity those poor souls who get all of their news from sites like WorldNetDaily, much as I pity those poor souls who rely on places like MichaelMoore.com for all of their information on world events.

    --
    We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
  107. A mod should read the parent of this post by TamMan2000 · · Score: 1

    It has been modded to -1 as overrated, but it clearly deserves an informative, at least for the first part...

    --
    "I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
  108. one question by hurfy · · Score: 1

    Why would they care if it was flagged for 18 and over?!?

    Can kids vote now ? ;)

  109. Hmmm by iceperson · · Score: 1

    So if say NK spent years developing technology and manufacting equipment using resources given to them by Clinton then it's fair to blame the Bush who shows up after the fact simply because the material's "born on" date is post 2001?

    1. Re:Hmmm by s388 · · Score: 1

      a few years ago bush said loud and clear we would not "tolerate" a nuclear north korea. yet the administration did nothing to deter the advent and now the standard-line is that it was inevitable.

      north korea also had more weapons-grade plutonium under bush senior. clinton was the one to make progress in the interim, and now under bush II north korea has nukes. the idea that diplomatically averting nuclear flashpoints ("carrot" approach or whatever you want to call it) is somehow inferior to aggression, threats, and war, is absurd. clinton had his problems, but just read the time-line yourself and you make the call about what the wiser more responsible policy was.

      i also can't even believe that somebody earlier in the thread said clinton merely achieved "international oversight" of north korea's nuclear programs--- as if that's worthless. (first of all it's not true: he accomplished an actual reduction of the korean weapons program, in addition to oversight). part of W. bush's rationale for the iraq war was that iraq was a rogue nation that refused "international oversight" of their weapons programs, which isn't even true. (see: paul o'neil)

      http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/07/nk-timeline/

      just read the timeline. read the facts. i'm not saying "conservative rule = bad" "democratic rule = great"-- just read the facts. it's a severe understatement to say bush II dropped the ball big-time. we're at war in iraq, thousands upon thousands people are dead there, and they have no weapons of mass destruction. north korea just detonated a nuke and the administration takes no responsibility whatsoever. and beyond that even, bush lied about his north korea policy plain and simple.

    2. Re:Hmmm by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 1
      So if say NK spent years developing technology and manufacting equipment using resources given to them by Clinton then it's fair to blame the Bush who shows up after the fact simply because the material's "born on" date is post 2001?
      Learn the difference between uranium and plutonium.

      Clinton struck a deal to keep plutonium away from the North Koreans, in return for help in building light water reactors which aren't useful in weapons programs. The North Koreans agreed and consequently started a clandestine uranium enrichment program that progressed much more slowly than their earlier efforts with plutonium. It wouldn't have produced anything for many years.

      As far as plutonium was concerned, the deal was a success. It worked for the last six years of Clinton's term and the first two years of Bush.

      Bush learned about the piddly uranium program and pulled out of the deal, allowing the North Koreans to start making plutonium again. Four years later a plutonium bomb explodes.

      Yeah, Clinton's fault.
    3. Re:Hmmm by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      "allowing"?

      Are you seriously naïve enough to believe that the previous deal in any way stopped them from working on it?

      "piddly uranium program"?

      Yeah, plutonium is SO much more dangerous than uranium. Nothing to worry about there at all!

    4. Re:Hmmm by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 1
      Are you seriously naïve enough to believe that the previous deal in any way stopped them from working on it?
      Yes, it gave nuclear inspectors free reign to visit any facility in the country, and required the North Koreans to continually produce spent nuclear fuel as deliverables.

      Much more effective than what Bush replaced it with: NOTHING. He calls the situation "unacceptable" in his speeches, and that's what qualifies as a "hard line approach" from Bush. I may be "seriously naïve" but I don't see how the blustering of a narcisstic sociopath is as effective as sending inspectors to North Korea and taking their nuclear fuel away.

      Yeah, plutonium is SO much more dangerous than uranium.
      It's easier to refine it and make a bomb out of it. The periodic table is showing its political bias against you.
  110. Looked that up in a book, didn't you by snowwrestler · · Score: 1

    If you ever listened to your gut you'd know that censorship is any weighted presentation of information that falls short of 100% equal time for all whack-job opinions. So long as they are pro-American gut-checked whack-job opinions.

    --
    Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  111. A better way to handle flagging by John+Jorsett · · Score: 1

    How about, instead of completely removing offending videos (of course, I exclude videos that violate laws like child porn in this proposal), YouTube simply moves them behind a page that warns the viewer? "THIS VIDEO HAS BEEN FLAGGED AS OFFENSIVE/INAPPROPRIATE/VOMIT-INDUCING BY 12345 YOUTUBE MEMBERS. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK". If you go ahead and view it anyway, you were warned.

  112. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  113. It could also be pointed out.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that you're a pansy arse liberal.

  114. MOD PARENT DOWN by ultramk · · Score: 1

    Sorry, couldn't help myself. :-)

    M-

    --
    You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
  115. Censorship? by Some_Llama · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I would say more like public service. Is it still "censorship" when the "information" is a blatant lie?

    1. Re:Censorship? by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

      Is it still "censorship" when the "information" is a blatant lie?

      Yes.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    2. Re:Censorship? by Some_Llama · · Score: 1

      Then I hope You Tube continues to censor WND, with maybe a side of Fox News.

  116. If we're blaming clinton by glsunder · · Score: 1

    If we're blaming Clinton for NK, are we going to blame Reagan for Iran? I mean he even sold them weapons. Illegally. It's not like we're only 1 year into the Bush administration. The fact is, Bush is just as much if not more to blame than Clinton. And guess what? I don't blame either of them for the NK problems. I do blame the right for trying to blame everything on Clinton. Sometimes bad shit happens.

  117. Flagged/censored or not ... by jopet · · Score: 1

    would it be legal to distribute this video in that way? I do not know if it was the copyright holders who put that video online in YouTube, but in a lot of cases, this is clearly not the case. Music videos, copies of TV spots, movies, and other stuff is put there in a clear violation of copyright.
    Even a private video where some youngster dances to a track of copyrighted music is clearly illegal according to copyright law. So I think YouTube has much bigger problems than the occasional "censorship" of something that is probably illegal to make publically available in the first place.

  118. Re:Bullshit. We can bribe NK, or we can bomb them by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    The US does have a third otion for dealing with North Korea, and, oddly enough, it involves no interaction with North Korea at all.

    It involves working with China. Demanding they clean up their own mess, and threatening sanction on them until they do do so. But no President even vaguely considers standing up to China, considing they're funding 1/8th of our fucking government. China doesn't care, because NK doesn't threaten them at all.

    So we've reached this point where NK has probably ceased serving China's purposes, and the shit is about to hit the fucking fan. Sanctions will start, and NK will probably do something batshit insane like wipe out Seoul.

    And we got played by China for the last two decades. And we're going to lose ten thousand troups in the DMZ, exactly at the point we can't afford it militarily.

    Seriously, we've never had any good options for North Korea. We should have slowly been withdrawing from any influence in that area, while making sure that both China and North Korea understand that if they invade South Korea, we'd bomb the hell out of whoever did it. This would have made China step up to the plate, which of course they would have.

    The question is, of a chained North Korea, and a wildly out of control North Korea that everyone agrees China has to shoot, which one plays more into China's hands? I actually kinda thing it's the later, and that this had to happen someday anyway, so I'm not that worried.

    However, comparing the handling of NK by Bush and Clinton, I've got to go with Clinton's handling. We bribed them, sure, but it wasn't that worthwhile a bribe. Meanwhile, Bush didn't seem to actually have any handling at all. I mean, at the least, strict words for removing the nuclear material. Hell, we're talking about bombing places Iran may be nuclear research, but we don't bomb trucks that are carrying nuclear materials? Even if Bush's non-handling coincidentally results in the best solution for us with China being forced to take out NK, I can't really condone that behavior.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  119. The above was in reply to c6gunner by irenaeous · · Score: 1

    It seems I replied to the parent by mistake.

  120. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dude! If it's not about rep vs. dem then why did you feel it necessary to point out your opinion that there is more dem related censorship? And since we're point our opinions up, I'd say that my opinion is that reps are much more vocal in wanting to censor anything that has any negative connotation about them.

  121. In related news... by Glock27 · · Score: 1
    A factual analysis of the liberal attempts at talk radio show that they just don't make money. It seems there is less of a market for liberals bashing of conservatives than most liberals would care to admit.

    In related news, Air America just declared bankruptcy.

    Liberalism - A plan to socialize America, redistribute wealth, weaken us militarily and tax us to death without providing any new solutions.

    Brilliant!

    Time for a >2 party system.

    --
    Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
    Score: -1 100% Flamebait
  122. "Liberals" ARE more correct. by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 1
    After all, we know that liberalism is 99% of time correct, while conservatism is 99% of the time wrong.

    (circa 750,000 bce)
    Liberal Caveman: Ugh. Look. Fire. Roast bunny. Bunny taste good roasted. Keeps longer, too. Feed more people.
    Conservative Caveman: Ugh. We have always eaten raw meat. Cooked meat bad for you. Only fags eat cooked meat. Real men eat raw meat.

    (circa 9000 bce)
    Liberal Pastoralist: Caves are cramped - let's live indoors!
    Conservative Pastoralist: We have always lived in caves. Caves are strong. Caves are good.

    (circa 1650)
    Conservative King Asshole: Divine right of Kings - my gluttony has been blessed BY GOD!
    Liberal Secular Philosopher: a government is only legitimate if it receives the consent of the governed through a social contract and protects the natural rights of life, liberty, and estate. If such consent is not given, citizens have a right to rebellion.

    (circa 1776)
    Conservative Loyalist: Remain subjects of the Crown!
    Liberal Patriots: Rebel Against the Crown - NOW!

    (circa 1860)
    Conservative Southerner: ENSLAVE THE NEGROES!
    Liberal Northerner: Free the Blacks. Now.

    (circa 1960)
    Conservative Southerner: BEAT THE NEGROES! Keep them disenfranchised and ignorant!
    Liberal Northerner: Let Blacks Vote and Be Educated.

    (circa 1980, S. Africa)
    Conservative: "Your misery shall endure forever." Liberal: "Apartheid must end NOW."

    The list goes on and on. The fact is, the liberal position of increased liberty and justice for ALL eventually wins out. Always. The micro measurements might be back and forth, but the march of the human project is in one direction, and it is not one that favours the conservative position. Ever.

    The Parent is a TROLL.

    RS

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
  123. WorldNetDaily is biased by jdbartlett · · Score: 1

    No news here; WorldNetDaily has been accusing Google of left wing bias for quite a while now. Another Slashdotter posted a similar article on an unrelated thread back in May; you can read their comment here and my response here.

    WorldNetDaily has no well-founded complaint against Google. Google has been removing material both from the left and from the right because of its policy against hate speech. WorldNetDaily == right wing crackpots who theorize that Google gives special treatment to Democrats. Why do they claim this? Because they realized a number of Google employees are democrats.

    Expect to see this same article regurgitated again and again at WorldNetDaily. Editors: in future, please make sure to prescribe a salt pillar for impressionable readers when linking to WorldNetDaily.

  124. overall political bent of slashdot by ChristTrekker · · Score: 1, Informative

    Actually, my take on it is that the conservative minority have gotten so fed up with the leftist leaning of \. that they finally hit the point where they're not going to silently put up with it anymore. In my experience, it's the leftists who are immediately/always ranting about this or that cause, while conservatives are busy with everyday life and would really rather not be bothered with politics at all most of the time and thus only speak up when it gets intolerable. But like I said, that's just MHO.

  125. free market rejects leftists by ChristTrekker · · Score: 1
    Funny that these conservatives never seem to object to the right-wing bias of the private talk radio industry

    Left-wingers can't take the heat of the format in talk radio. In talk radio, you put callers on the air. I think most people are actually conservative in their views (admittedly I'm conservative/libertarian in my views too) and so, when given a format where they can't just buy their way and pontificate without interruption, they suffer. On TV, which is a one-way push format, liberals are better able to get a lock. Where they have to confront the real world, liberal ideas fail: witness the war on poverty, the war on drugs, public education - despite ever-increasing amounts of money channelled into these endeavors, nothing really seems to improve much.

    1. Re:free market rejects leftists by elrous0 · · Score: 1
      Or maybe liberals just aren't as good at trafficking in catch-phrases, easy simple-minded answers, and close-minded rants.

      I'm sure someone yelling "Let's bomb 'em back to the stone age" sounds a lot better on the radio than a 30-minute explanation of the complexities of foreign relations in a global economy. But that doesn't mean we should put the monkeys in charge of the zoo (no offense to monkeys).

      -Eric

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  126. a definition of censorship I wasn't aware of... by Vellmont · · Score: 1

    Strange. I thought censorship was actually preventing people from seeing things, not simply labeling them and letting others decide if they should be viewed or not. I guess I never knew that when someone told me that Gigli was a really bad movie they were actually CENSORING Gigli.

    I guess that makes Siskel And Ebert some of the most successfull censors of our time.

    --
    AccountKiller
  127. Re:You are too blind to see Clinton fell into a tr by s388 · · Score: 1

    "No matter what the US gives to North Korea, they can always renege on it and start making nukes."

    Yeah, then you stop giving them things. That's how it works. You could exchange "Getting Gifts" for "Remaining Unkilled"-- it's the same exact thing. You give somebody incentive to do/not-do something. North Korea could renege on obedience to a threat of physical force in the same way they could renege on exchange agreements. The only thing you CAN'T renege on is your complete conquest, when it's finished.

    By your reasoning, no peace treaties should ever be signed, because it's only a hope/promise of future behavior-- the victor should just annihilate the defeated enemy.

    Anyway, abstractions aside, the situation is escalating now, which wasn't so in the 90's. NK had less plutonium, no nukes, and active oversight.

  128. Waaaahmburger and French Cries by ElboRuum · · Score: 1

    Oh, puh-leeeeeaassse. YouTube restricted the content probably because enough people rec'd it adult content. Since you can still get to it, at least the last time I checked, through an account login which is free, it isn't censorship. Doubly so because anyone who can legitimately claim adult age is also legitimately permitted to vote, ergo the target audience of this video.

    Besides, I saw that chunk of crap. It IS offensive... to my intelligence. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a parody until I realized that they were serious about the content (albeit in a sarcastic manner). I kept expecting the punch line to come but it never did.

    I know that conservatives need snark, bullshit, and unlimited access to media to convince suckers to vote for them, but my guess is that it was the viewers who caused that to be put in the back by the pornography. That's democracy for you, conservatives, I know you don't recognize it, so consider that a PSA.

    Besides, "pornography" is specifically what it is, since the definition is "something that appeals to one's prurient interests". I can think of nothing more appealing to prurience than something that panders to a right-wing desire to get your rocks off while debasing your "enemy", those danged liberals.

  129. Censorship? by homey+of+my+owney · · Score: 1

    It's not censorship if its me that doesn't want you to see it.

  130. As a point of logic, by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 1

    Anyone who publishes both Dailykos and a "paleocon antisemitic site" doesn't have a "clear bias". There could be a bias but it's not a clear one.

    1. Re:As a point of logic, by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      Antiwar.com touts books claiming Isreal could have stopped 9/11 and that they have infiltrated the Pentagon.

      http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595 296823/antiwarbookstore/

      So I maintain that the bias is clear.

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
    2. Re:As a point of logic, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if Raimondo's claims are true? Does reality have an anti-semitic bias, too?

      You could refute his claims instead of poisoning the well.

    3. Re:As a point of logic, by funwithBSD · · Score: 1

      I am not refuting his claims because you cannot prove something did not happen.

      I can prove with evidence that the terrorist piloted the planes and crashed them into buildings.

      I can't prove the Isrealis didn't know and didn't tell us. You also can't prove that the US government didn't know and didn't do anything.

      What you have to do is prove that something DID happen and take all the evidence into consideration, unlike the 911truthers.

      He has circumstancial evidence with no REAL evidence i.e. government documents saying "Let's keep the plot from the Americans so we profit from it"

      What he has is this MAY have happened, or this MAY have been held back.

      --
      Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
  131. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring by Atzanteol · · Score: 1

    It's not just that they are dishonest by spinning this video situation, they are also ignoring the countless examples of Republican censorship.

    So before I can point out your dirty laundry I must first display all of mine? I don't think so.

    Even you don't do that in your post, ignoring Clinton having attorneys demand that "The Path to 9/11" not be aired.

    Both sides are too dirty to begin the "who is more corrupt" game though. We all just lose...

    --
    "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

    - Charles Darwin
  132. Censoring? I'd say suppression at best... by drewson99 · · Score: 1

    For me to consider something "censored" it would have to remain fully accessible to the public but with content changed or cut out of it. That would be far more insidious than merely restricting access to people who claim to be 18 years old. By the article's definition of censorship, all pornography sold in the US is censored by the government.

  133. Re:What's wrong with being conservative? by DavidTC · · Score: 1

    That's why I can't read people like that anymore. I just automatically assume they're lying.

    Sure, it started out simple. I'd check things they reported like 'Things getting better in Iraq', and go check the current situtation.

    Then I started checking things like the actual names and position of people. 'Tony Blair, the Prime Minister of England, said...' and I'd have to go and check that he was still the prime minister, despite me having no doubt before reading the article.

    And this point, if I were to read their site, I'd actually check whether or not it is possible to create 'videos', a series of moving images that appear to the human eye as movement.

    Gve me another month, and I'll start questioning their assumption that time and space exist.

    --
    If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  134. Says WorldNetDaily, "Pot, kettle, black." by aztektum · · Score: 1

    As others have pointed out this was a byproduct of YouTube's ranking system. Like WorldNetDaily hasn't positioned itself as a media source that pushes a particular agenda. If they're concerned with others being bipartisan maybe they should lead the way.

    --
    :: aztek ::
    No sig for you!!
  135. Mod parent up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mod parent up!

  136. Censorship by PortHaven · · Score: 1

    "It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative"

    Sorry, forgot:

    if(conservative == true){
        censorship = "good";
    }
    else{
        censorship = "bad";
    }

  137. It goes both ways by Krojack · · Score: 1

    Republicans want to censor whats against them..
    Democrats want to censor whats against them..

    It goes both ways.. Anyone that says other words is full of crap.

    Both political parties are full of crap up to their eyeballs and only care about throwing their own feces at the other party rather then doing anything worthwhile to HELP this country.

    I'm an independante conservative... I think for myself and don't let a party tell me whats good for me and whats bad.

  138. Timely: Events WRT Air America. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 1

    A factual analysis of the liberal attempts at talk radio show that they just don't make money. It seems there is less of a market for liberals bashing of conservatives than most liberals would care to admit.

    This seems especially timely: I heard this morning that Air Americal just filed for Chapter 11.

    And I heard it on KCBS radio - the CBS news stations in San Francisco - not on a conservative talk show. (KCBS is about as left-wing as a news station can get and still pretend to be objectvie.)

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  139. Banned by You Tube (Look for yourself) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You want banned by You Tube? Here you go:

    Please explain why these would be banned for inappropriate content?

    #1 Showing a probably fake ambulance attack in Lebannon during the Summer.
    Based on what YouTube does, why did they ban it?

    Here it is on Google video (while it lasts):
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6330911779 266164182&q=rocket+ride&hl=en

    I did find a new copy on YouTube (quick see it while it lasts, this is not by the original creator and submitter)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQJmWjfxPTg

    Same author did this one that is still available (has a nice variation on all your base belong to us....)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lM57WpO-ww

    Don't get caught up in the politics of the message, look at its content. Why should it be banned, when compared to all other stuff YouTube allows?
    Is this any further out of the mainstream compared to something on Sat. Night Live?

    #2 Video about about what is allowed and what is not.
    Here is the background
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1296846821 707749411&q=banned+by+youtube&hl=en
    here is the video banned video:
    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2561897238 13207747&q=first+they+came&hl=en

  140. Re:Bullshit. We can bribe NK, or we can bomb them by rkanodia · · Score: 1

    We should have slowly been withdrawing from any influence in that area

    You keep using that word...

    while making sure that both China and North Korea understand that if they invade South Korea, we'd bomb the hell out of whoever did it.

    I do not think it means what you think it means.

  141. Critical evaluation of WND by Old+Man+Kensey · · Score: 1
    I have read multiple WND pieces (they often are posted to a gun-rights mailing list I'm on). They are as right-wing wingnut loony as Democratic Underground or most of the posters on dailykos are left-wing moonbat nutty. I mentally mod anything WND releases as an automatic -2 or -1 (rense.com is even worse).

    Pretending that WND is an unbiased source is roughly on the same intellectual level as trying to say that Ted Turner had absolutely no political agenda in how he ran his media holdings.

    --
    -- Old Man Kensey
  142. In fear of invoking Goodwin by blang · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    From the article "The commentator noted YouTube has "dismembered conservative and politically incorrect speech" in the past, pulling videos critical of Islam and even banning popular conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, who is also a WND columnist."

    I have yet to read a column by Malkin that could not be chartacterized as hate speech. Hardly a standard by which Youtube could be judged. I think even Hitler would be ashamed to have Malkin as a PR person. Cause that's one filtlhy lady, to put it mildly.

    I always find it amusing that ultra-rightwingers like this squawk about cencorship. They LOVE cencorship. They would be perfectly happy to KILL for the right to cencor things they dislike.

    These retards believe that as long as something is politically incorrect, it must be good. Pro torture, against abortion, pro death sentence, against healthcare, pro cencorship (except when it's their stuff) , against flagburning, pro big government, against taxes, for budget deficits, pro poverty, pro wealth, anti middle class. Luckily for them, boh houses of congfress, as well as the white house are on the same page as these ridiculous parodies of Hitler and Goering.

    --
    -- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
  143. Re:YouTube Is Not Censoring by 0xABADC0DA · · Score: 1

    Maybe you've never heard the saying, that those in glass houses should not throw stones? Yes, exactly.

    As far as I can tell this 'news story' is about whining that a technological system blocked their attack ad in exactly the same way it blocks attack ads from other parties. Was there any evidence given for example that other videos were marked inapproprate after this one but were cleared before it? Nope. Was there any evidence for even a single claim in the article, for example the claims about Google? Nope. Just some quotes by random people.

    A mod gave my post Offtopic for giving an example of actual media censorship on a story about alleged media censorship. It makes me wonder what exactly the topic is if it isn't media censorship... some crackpot whining republicans? youtube's method of blocking inappropriate ads? what?

  144. Slashdot a Wee Bit Insinuatory by MSTCrow5429 · · Score: 1
    It's also worth pointing out that WorldNetDaily could be described as just wee bit conservative

    Um, so? Slashdot is a wee bit liberal. The issue is if YouTube is censoring videos whose politics they disagree with or not. Bashing the source for its politics irregardless of factual accuracy is shameful.

    --
    Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
  145. SO? by nurb432 · · Score: 1

    Its a company, they can choose not to air anything they want..

    Its only when the government gets involved that there are any issues with it.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  146. Pigeonholed.... by Subacultcha · · Score: 1
    `Or would you prefer that goatse wasn't "pigeonholled"?'


    I don't know about pigeonholing, but whatever it was that happened to him, yeah, I would have preferred that it hadn't.
  147. Labels by rubberbando · · Score: 1

    Apparently it's human instinct to slap a label on everyone and anything.... If someone can't fit something into a category, they seem lost or unable to comprehend it...

    --
    DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
  148. dance monkeys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    retardlicans,democraps, or whatever else you call youself and argue over stupid pointless things.. you asshats would make good lawyers.

    "hate politics.. and hates religion"

  149. For those of you bitching about Kos... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    You might want to read this from him today.

    Kos wrote:
    I voluntarily asked for Daily Kos to be removed from Google News since it was returning results from this site that quite frankly weren't up to the sort of standards I expect out of a service offering up credible news. Obviously, I was alone in trying to preserve the integrity of the service. Not even Google News seems to give a damn.
  150. Obviously I was hoping for a different answer by Britz · · Score: 1

    I shouldn't have mentioned Iraq I suppose. But seeing your mentioning of MSM I suppose it wouldn't have made a difference. Do you know what the defenition of mainstream is?

    Oh and the only thing that actually had changed in the day to day life of 25 million human beings in Iraq is that violence is up and the power is often down. Or do you think the regional warlords permit stuff like freedom of press? And for women it will go downhill from here. In these uncertain times religion is on the rise (I suppose you are very religios too, but not a woman, so you are in favour of this) and that means more cloths and less freedom.

  151. It is all about people making money! by Britz · · Score: 1

    Wake up! Don't live in a dream world. There are hugh gaps in my education btw, but at least I understand some basic principles. I looked at all the arguments why the war in Iraq was fought and found them all to be bogus. Including the "blook for oil" crap. Money is the only one left. There is your independent research.

    "Some call you the elite, I call you my base."
    GW Bush