A half-truth is a whole lie - Jewish proverb
|
|
|
Google censors Youtube nasties
ONLINE ADVERTISING BROKER Google has finally enabled a 'safety mode' on its non-profit video site, Youtube.
Launched yesterday, Youtube's safety mode will allow users with Google or Youtube accounts to only view content that's deemed to be wholesome and abides by Youtube's Community Guidelines. Of course the problem with this is that you will have to trust that the filtering system is up-to-date with the latest content.
Given that Youtube receives 20 hours of video every minute there is a better than average chance that the filters won't be able to do real-time censorship. Google itself is saying that "no filtering system is 100 [per cent] accurate."
Youtube's safety mode will not only block specific videos but search queries may return no results depending on the query that has been entered. The user will be informed that the Youtube overlords have rejected their query or curtailed the results within safety mode.
Other safety mode changes will include video comments being hidden by default, although viewing will be possible with any naughty words hidden with asterisks.
Google, seemingly thinking that only the technically infirm use Youtube released a patronising video outlining the features of what is essentially an opt-in censorship programme.
It is not known what percentage of all content will be flagged as not suitable for safety mode but one suspects a hefty chunk regardless of how liberal the censors are.
For Google, censoring any content is a touchy subject. Given that, safety mode is something that most if not all parents will support.
However the greatest problem will be that Youtube videos can be viewed outside of its website. With the Youtube applications on Android and Iphone devices not supporting safety mode it doesn't look like it'll be too hard for kids to circumvent this half-baked attempt at filtering out video nasties. µ
Tags: Google
Share this:
Share
Addendum on my previous comment:
When I said "an american company decide" what I am really saying is "right wing christian insane people" since they basically control censorship in the US and it's them companies try to please with their censorship 99.9% of the time, it doesn't originate from their own thinking or judgment.
When companies or individuals do their own moderating it looks quite different.
Also I remind people like 'hoohoo' that youtube has already censored from the get-go and most sexual and overly violent or pro-america's (perceived) enemies material is removed and milder stuff is given the 'you must log in and swear you are 18+' treatment.
There is far too much prurient stuff on the interweb for this to make much difference.
If I were a parent I'd be even more concerned that europe is at risk at adopting (even more) what americans consider good and bad, and children are easily as impressionable as adults and what's worse - it sticks longer, so I'm not sure a responsible non-american parent would want an american company to decide what they cannot see or read or hear.
And as a responsible parent would you not at least want some indication from google as to what their views are about such things? Or do you want your kids to grow up into little americans? I didn't think so.
Corrected, thanks for pointing out my mistake, obviously I can't read very well.
L.
I was about to say, twenty minutes would make life very easy, you could employ 5 sweat shop workers (four vids at once) in china to quite easily check new content at less than a hundred quid a day. Maybe even a couple hundred chinese people might not be out of the question, then again maybe another country might be safer given googles current popularity over there.
So to get around it, users just have to click the "log out" button? Thank goodness this procedure is far too complicated for children to figure out.
Opt-in censoring is way better than the alternative, though.
not 20min per minute