This Threat to Free Speech and Expression Can’t Be Underestimated
I was talking about this very problem with Matt Hurley of Weapons of Mass Discussion on Wide Wakes Radio last night in the context of YouTube, and pulled out the final line of the Who classic “Won’t Get Fooled Again” to make my point: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
YouTube has been arbitrarily deleting posted videos that violate its nebulous “standards,” at what appears to be an accelerating pace. The victims, unsurprisingly, are largely those who lean conservative and/or are attempting to expose the truth about worldwide jihad (the video at the link, Michelle Malkin’s “First They Came” was [and still is] mirrored at BizzyBlog in a vestige of her pre-Hot Air days). Left unchecked, YouTube as the “new boss” could attempt to unilaterally impose the kinds of constraints on broadcasting that the Fairness Doctrine imposed on liberal-dominated TV and radio stations (”the old boss”) until the mid-1980s.
We are in a different era, though, and currently there is a very real check on YouTube. It is known as the marketplace. If a company like YouTube got too heavyhanded, free-expression alternatives like Hot Air and others would continue to grow. After all, it’s a free market and the Internet is wide open to anyone with ideas and bandwidth, right?
Possibly wrong — very wrong:
Amateur ‘video bloggers’ under threat from EU broadcast rules
THE Government is seeking to prevent an EU directive that could extend broadcasting regulations to the internet, hitting popular video-sharing websites such as YouTube.
The European Commission proposal would require websites and mobile phone services that feature video images to conform to standards laid down in Brussels.
Ministers fear that the directive would hit not only successful sites such as YouTube but also amateur “video bloggers†who post material on their own sites. Personal websites would have to be licensed as a “television-like serviceâ€.
Viviane Reding, the Media Commissioner, argues that the purpose is simply to set minimum standards on areas such as advertising, hate speech and the protection of children.
….. The draft rules, known as the Television Without Frontiers directive, extend the definition of broadcasting to cover services such as video-on-demand or mobile phone clips.
If you don’t smell a rat, check your nose to make sure it’s still there. Imagine people with YouTube’s content-screening mindset (or worse) and the full force of government behind them. Bryan at Hot Air writes:
First, it should be obvious that the EU, through its “Television Without Frontiers,†is attempting to stifle free speech. Video bloggers and our audiences, regardless of our politics, should see the EU’s move as a threat to our own free speech.
There is no limited spectrum space on the Internet, and as long as domain name regulation remains in force there’s no worry of one web TV station stepping on the signal of any other. The EU’s effort is all about grabbing power and dictating what is and isn’t acceptable speech. They don’t even attempt to hide their intentions, but openly state that they want to stamp out “hate speech.†Well, hate speech is in the eyes of the beholder, and you can be sure that the Brussels bureaucrats who will be in charge of the TWF will not play fair.
In today’s Vent, which you MUST see, Michelle points out that the “we should be just like them” crowd in the US will use any successfully implemented effort by the EU to regulate Vblogging as justification to bring back the misnamed Fairness Doctrine here.
This can’t be allowed to occur. Contact the EU (e-mails to both the public and press addys listed would, in my opinion, be a good idea), and in a polite manner tell them that they can kiss the world’s Brussels sprouts.
I fear, therefore, I act.
I am opposed to government regulation of almost every form, and the vast majority of Americans (believe it or not) agree with me.
IF YouTube becomes a mouthpiece for the left - exclusively, sites like HotAir may become their competition on the Right. We have already seen the consequences of such a marketplace fight in radio. I have no issue with competition, but the “crying” about what is going on at YouTube sounds very adolesent, in a tech kinda way.
Hey it was free, not it’s not.
Hey anyone can post anything, that is the freedom of the net.
Eight months ago it was MySpace this, MySpace that. Now it is YouTube this, YouTube that…let’s get out of our screen glare and realize that hundreds of millions of people don’t KNOW what YouTube is, let alone rely on/use it.
I have a dial-up connection STILL and do not view video or listen to audio online - despite my extensive online footprint.
Ignore the EU, it is a walking corpse.
Comment by Tracy Coyle — October 18, 2006 @ 1:10 pm
#1, What is going on at YouTube is particularly offensive because of an at-least implied and definitely hands-off approach until pretty recently.
And as the post clearly stated, if YouTube was the only problem it can be worked around, as you said.
But I would not minimize the damage that EU-PU can do, esp because the US intelligentsia still thinks highly of them. Zombies can do a lot of damage. Have you seen “Resident Evil”? :–>
Comment by TBlumer — October 18, 2006 @ 2:09 pm
Another reason to dissolve the EU…
They now want to stifle videobloggers, as Michelle Malkin dicovers….
Trackback by Tel-Chai Nation — October 18, 2006 @ 3:02 pm
I was watching a clip from O’Reilly the other day and Michelle Malkin was discussing Oprah and her very noticeable leftist focus after she had on the New York Time’s Frank Rich. They concluded that Conservatives, and the right, have to start creating alternative media. This is the only way to compete, and get our thoughts out.
I would say also that when we consider how the purchasing of gasoline contributes to the money Saudi Arabia funnels to the Islamist, consider the money we, the right, funnel through Microsoft, Google, MySpace and Ebay to leftist pro-Nazi organizations like Move-on.Org, Planned Parenthood, and the Democratic Party.
I know I use Blogger from Goggle and feel a bit hypercritical, but it’s free. But until the right person or group will do the same, I’ll probably keep using Blogger until I can find another medium.
The bottom-line is that the righthas to start becoming more creative and entrepreneurial.
Comment by Brian — October 18, 2006 @ 6:20 pm